


Hair of the Dog

by stillmadaboutpetra



Series: Bite the Hand That Feeds [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Action/Adventure, Background Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, Comrades in Arms, Conspiracy, Drama, Experimental Fiction, F/M, Friendship/Love, Gen, Intersex Characters, M/M, Masculinity, Minor Character Death, Non linear storytelling, Original Character(s), POV Multiple, Past Relationship(s), Politics, Pre-Canon, Psychological Trauma, Romance, State violence, plot heavy, political violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-12-09
Packaged: 2018-07-18 22:34:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 43,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7333330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillmadaboutpetra/pseuds/stillmadaboutpetra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the ghosts of Erwin's past return from the dead, the new Commander is forced to negotiate his old loyalties and his new future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. spring

**Author's Note:**

> Hair of the dog that bit you: the Old English belief that the hair from the same dog that bit you would heal the wound.

The roof won't do for Erwin's first night as commander. After cards, after something hard and sour, Levi takes Erwin by the hand and hauls him out of the barracks. They kiss in an alley, rolling and pinning each other against house walls, biting lips with secrets. 

"Where are you taking me?" Erwin asks, picking Levi up under his thighs and stumbling down the uneven dirt road, tripping in divots and near twisting his ankle in horse shit. He's never cared less about being seen with his guard down.

"Keep going straight," Levi manages, busy bruising Erwin's neck. On his skin clings sweet tobacco.

"Maria," Erwin sighs, coming to a stand still in the road. The world was silent. Levi hums, kissing underneath Erwin's earlobe lingeringly before Erwin sets him on his feet. 

"Yeah. Maria." 

A roof isn't enough, not for this night. Levi wants the world at their feet, not this dungeon-keep. They walk under the heavy-hung moon to Wall Maria. The guards at the stairs let them up without fuss. There, commander and captain hang their legs over the edge. Levi hasn't a cliff for Erwin to dare himself off. 

Fingers interlocked, sprawling against stones, the sun slowly bleaching the sky, the morning comes easy to them. Erwin rubs the sleep in his eye. 

"Smoke this. Good leaf," Levi suggests, rolling over to tuck a tight roll into Erwin's lips. Erwin lights up, shuffling to curl around Levi, nudging his head up onto Erwin's shoulder.

"I love you," Erwin announces plainly, plucking the cigarrate from his lips and inspecting it. He holds it to Levi's lips, propped up on his elbow petting Levi's bangs from his face. A smile slowly warms Levi's face. 

"Youre telling me that now?" Levi japes. 

"Yeah. I have your life in my hand. It has to be now." Erwin's calloused hand cradles the whole side of Levi's face, thumb rubbing over Levi's pursed lips. A look comes to Erwin's eye; regret, like he wants to take it back. Everything; take everything back. There's more blood on those carressing hands than Levi can hope to dream of.

With a grunt, Levi rolls them over. Their feet kick out over the empty edge of the wall. Erwin gasps, scrambling back against the fortification. He hauls Levi with him, a hand knotted in his shirt.

"Are you stupid," Erwin scolds. Levi howls with laughter, grinning stupid -- yeah he's stupid. 

"Did you shit yourself, old man?" 

Erwin shoves Levi, knuckles his ribs. "Fuck off you sewer rat." He finds the cigarette and puffs the ember at the edge back to the slow burn.

That just makes Levi snort. "Fuck off you pig with wings."

Erwin rolls them again; teeth on the fat; they bruise, shoulder blades, elbows, and hips. It's a wonder neither of them bites their tongue. But then they're kissing, grappling tight, kicking loose stones over the edge of the wall.

"You're incorrigible," Erwin sighs into his mouth, sounding punchdrunk and content. They trade smoke. The morning is a sick parallel to the night. But it's Erwin. Erwin. And Levi feels with him; Mike's huge hands -- his touch had made Levi want for Erwin. It was maddening, that sort of sickness. 

"I wouldn't let you fall."

"Couldnt do much now." Erwin slides his hands down Levi's back, then up, under his shirt. He skims the raised shadows of the straps. "Not like this."

"Aint got nothing but I wouldn't let you go down like that." Levi's eyes open as he leans out of the kiss to look Erwin over. Commander. Sina's cunt, the crazy fucker did it. He really did it. "Not 'lone , least."

"Don't say that."

"Fine. Won't." But Levi thinks it. It's plain on his face. He'd go down with Erwin, right after him if not before. Go down for Erwin. 

Erwin shakes his head, kissing him again, tasting like good leaf and the rising Sun. He knows Levi would hang onto him by the skin of his teeth, till everything in him got ripped apart -- till Erwin got ripped away from him. And he thinks of fucking Levi right there, over the wall, fucking him towards the horizon, towards that death drop. Instead, they lay and kiss, they rock against stone, grit sticking to their palms. The Sun slips around Erwin to glare into Levi's eyes, a red haze behind his lids that taunts him.  

"Mike kissed on me tonight," Levi admits later, squinting one eye open to watch Erwin from his spot pillowed against his chest.

"Did he ask permission?" There's a hint of worry but not jealousy. Erwin can figure that if Levi had been in a temper or skittish, Mike would have come to cards with a broken nose. 

"He stopped when I said to."

"He won't again," Erwin says lightly, knowingly. His voice sounds unconcerned, but Levi has the hard beat of his heart beneath his ear.

"He doesn't know what to do with me. Doesn't really know what to do about anyone, don't think; you've got him all turned around, Erwin."

A hard sigh rattles out of Erwin. "Mike's always been...," he trails off cause he's useless.

"He's proper in love with you." Levi hums knowingly when Erwin clenches his jaw and stares hard at the sun coming up up up. "In case you hadn't realized."

Erwin's jaw ticks again. He palms the back of Levi's head and presses their faces together, a slide of lips over Levi's temple. "He worries the hell out of me."

"You know I'll die some day too," Levi reminds, not as gentle as he ought to be. Erwin strokes his hair back, still clutching at him. His pinky goes twitching, a little tick. 

"Not like him. Not like me. You, you're gonna make it longer than any of us."

The words shock Levi. His eyes open wide, a look of terrified wonder prying his mouth open on an empty awe. It does more to him than a confession of love; he thought Erwin had long passed the days of such childish beliefs. You oughtn't make promises about Coming Home or After or When This War Is Over. And you don't go conning yourself that anyone's gonna come out whole. Levi swore his life away and Erwins talking like no one's gonna call him to account. The fucker believes it. That crazy fucker. 

So Levi shrinks down into Erwin's chest, cursing him in a low breath. "Don't fuck with me."

Erwin chuckles, hollow and carved out, and kisses the top of Levi's head. "My apologies. Next time I'll tell you you're a walking dead man."

"That's more like it, Commander. And don't fucking tell Mike you're too pussyfooted to love him because you're betting on his bloody end. That's a hell of a thing to tell your second."

"Just the thing for my second," Erwin argues, not the least cowed.

Levi supposes that's fair if not grim as all hell. The two people in charge, they need to be ready to die. Soldiers won't follow a leader who isn't willing to lead them to Hell from a hoofbeat ahead. 

Levi -- he's ready to die. But he's not allowed. 

"And Hanji?" Levi says, minutes into a stretched silence.

Erwin smirks. That ace up his sleeve he wants to keep all to himself; for now; fucking nail in the foot of anyone who underestimates where the knowledge and the power lies. 


	2. counter

The new office and single room Mike earned as Lieutenant Commander gives him plenty of room to sprawl papers everywhere and drum his fingers over chipped and stained wood passed onto him from Erwin himself.

“Only a week in and already you’re shirking your duties,” Mike teases dryly, shuffling papers to feel competent. Erwin leans against the desk, jacket pulling tight around his shoulders. 

“I would prefer to remain here, but I do have a meeting with the other Commanders and Zackley that so desperately needs me.” He doesn’t look too happy either, but as Commander, as the brand spanking new Commander, he has to report the new budget, inform of tactical changes, swear a new oath and get the top-down treatment. 

“Will Levi be enough?” which is a stupid question; Levi is more than enough to escort Erwin. Anyone else would just be a hindrance. Erwin’s smile says as much. “Right,” Mike harrumphs. “I’ll be done with squad assignments.”

“Don’t quibble over the reports; I’ll take you at your word.” Erwin wraps his knuckles against his old desk, pausing to look fond and assessing at Mike, before he moves out of the office and barracks; Mike watches him mount, Levi already at the ready on his own horse. The vision of their two dark figures turning oval to triangle to gone into the distance leaves behind a seed of doubt; it does not seem unlikely that Erwin had given him the position as Lieutenant Commander so only to have someone handle the necessary work in order to keep Levi as a free agent; Levi really does report only to Erwin. Mike has to sign and stamp to Zackly and the Crown in Erwin’s stead. 

The thought makes his stomach lurch. Not with ire against Erwin but the sick swim of doubt and fear. The dark revelations of Erwin’s thoughts on the condition of the Survey Corp, the true nature of their existence makes Mike’s knees go weak. Is this all really no more than the constant quelling of resistance to a insidious tyranny? But Erwin knows, is wise on it, and still he rides out every time to live or die in the name of his convictions; that, Mike believes in without doubt.  
\--  
“So did you bring me as an intimidation tactic or are you worried Mike’ll work it up to kiss me again while you’re gone?”

Erwin doesn’t spare Levi a look. “I realize that you dislike Sina, Levi.”

“Dislike? Dislike Sina? Me? I fucking love this place. Where else’ll I see such fat men fucking such skinny whores? Dislike Sina. Wrong guy, Erwin.”

Erwin snorts, shaking his head. Their horses are practically rubbing shoulders in the streets, a slow pace not enough to bounce them in their saddles. “Intimidation.” Erwin eventually gives in and meets Levi’s narrow look. “And _wild_ jealousy.”

“You’re an ass,” Levi says mildly.  
\--  
Zackley heads the table. Dot Pixis, Commander of the Garrison, marks his immediate right; Pixis doesn’t bring anyone with him aside from his flask. Commander Fiskus brings his Lieutenant Commander, Nile Dawk; Erwin has Levi. 

“You brought your…” Fiskus gestures at Levi. 

“Captain Levi, yes. Lieutenant Commander Zacharias is establishing new squads in my absence. I thought it best not to take all of the authority away at once,” Erwin explains casually, tone totally void of confrontation, eyes down at the papers he was straightening. Levi slouches back in his seat, rolling his eyes from Erwin’s false indifference to the military leaders around him. Saint Sina, Rose, Maria, it’sa fucking nightmare in here. Nile has a hairy eyeball on Erwin, a slightly constipated look overcoming his face. Fiskus looks like he wanted to reinstate the arrest warrant on Levi. Pixis’s a mask of cool pleasantness and Zackley’s already waving them on. 

Budget reports are handed over. Protocol changes debated. Fiskus goes on for a long time about crime reports and expectations and Erwin’s questioned here and there about Corp responsiveness in cases of state emergency. Levi could have eaten his shoe. Intimidation, his ass. 

Until, when, Zackly clears his throat, suddenly very intent.

“There is a primary concern to present here today. Pixis and Fiskus are already informed, but Erwin, Nile, and,” just a pause before Zackly reluctantly continues, “Levi, there is an insurgency group called Horizon. You may have heard through private or public channels about a couple utilizing forbidden technology in an attempt to breach the Walls. It was first assumed to be an isolated incident, but since then, investigative forces have uncovered the reemergence of Horizon. They were thought to be exterminated years ago. You three,” Zackley looks between Erwin, Nile, and Levi, “would have been boys. It’s unlikely you ever heard of them.”

Nile is quick to insist that he has, at least the recent incident with some young wild couple. Levi has because anyone swearing to bring down the monarchy was worth a bite of gossip in the slums, if only for the wish fulfilment. He thinks he remembers a recruitment speech, a couple of people who didn’t belong slinking around the slums like they had something to prove to themselves for different reasons than pretentious Uppers. The reverie is almost enough to distract Levi from noticing how carefully, impossibly still Erwin has gone. 

“Horizon, for those unfamiliar, wants the end of the monarchy. They incite violence and sedition; all members are wanted for treason against Humanity under penalty of death. They were responsible for a series of murders of public officials and military officers some years ago; recent reports suspect some involvement by Horizon in the Drought Riots in the south of Maria as well, although that cannot be confirmed. Fiskus has employed counter-insurgencies efforts with a special division of the Military Police along with heightened policing of public print and punishment of suspected sedition. All branches of the military are to be on alert; I want free-exchange of suspects and cooperation between branches.”

Erwin moves, and the slump of his body startles Levi; he’s quick to mask his expression as Erwin slouches forward, one elbow on the table, chin in hand and expression skeptical. “So it’s a group that wants the Crown dead? Should we prepare for armed rebellion or being murdered in our sleep?”

Erwin’s voice is off; the lightness covers a deep probing. Levi scrapes his eyes down his form, the purposeful nonchalance, the crookedness of it; Erwin has his free hand at his hip, resting on the butt of his Commander’s blade, fingers curled. 

“Yes,” Zackley says seriously, eyes sharp. “Be mindful of your soldiers, Erwin. In fact, after your first expedition, I want you to individually vet them. I’ll be drafting a list of interrogation questions and will submit them to you three.”

“Zackley,” Fiskus cuts in, again flapping his hand all over the place, “wouldn’t that sort of thing tip them off? Formal inspections would excite the soldiers and then the masses.”

“Each branch should establish its own selection of informed soldiers to be the eyes and ears in lieu of a formal inspection,” Pixis mediated. “If Horizon is showing itself in any way, it’s either young fools picking up an old flag or people who have waited a long time. In which case, we need to wait and see before acting.” 

“I agree with Commander Pixis,” Erwin chimes in, sitting back now and looking thoughtful. “We should match their secrecy with our own. Additionally, would it be possible for me to have the case documents on Horizon? I fear I was not so politically minded as a boy to know anything useful and don’t much like being left in the dark on so serious a matter.”

Refusing to look at Erwin, as if his eyes will betray the way Erwin still rests a caressing hand on the hilt of his blade, Levi looks across the table to stare at Nile. He never did like the man, always funny about Erwin in a desperate way. Guarded his pretty young wife like a dog but couldn’t seem capable of looking away from Erwin despite his voiced grievances. Now, too, Nile stared at Erwin, wary and almost…concerned. Like he too could see the coiled tension in Erwin that the man was strangling back. 

“You’ll have to read up on it here; I don’t want the documents traveling out of archives,” Zackely says. Erwin nods once.

“Let someone know I’ll be over tonight. I may have to extend my visit here if there’s a significant amount of information to go over,” Erwin hums, finally sitting back. He laces his fingers together, that fatal hand finally drawing from his sword. Levi twitches his eyes away, shifting; his jaw pops audibly from holding it clenched. 

The meeting concludes with another set for two weeks from then. In the mean time, the branches are to put together a list of operatives they trust with information on the Horizon. Erwin makes a passing comment about needing to read and catch up with everyone; Pixis claps him on the shoulder amicably. Once Erwin turns from all but Levi’s sight, his well-meaning expression thunders off his face, leaving behind a stiff terror; he’s nearly bug-eyed and twitching for one grotesque minute. It’s the face fit for a man stepping into the room of a massacre.

“Erwin.”

Levi turns on his heel, stepping between Erwin and Nile. A hand at the small of his back gentles him down from a ready lunge. 

“Nile,” Erwin murmurs, hand still lingering on Levi far too intimately than the situation warrants. Looking up, and doesn’t that just piss him off, Levi can’t help but notice that Nile noticed it too. Lieutenant Commander of the Military Police. Levi curls his lip in a reflexive sneer at having to bare that man’s eyes on him. But the look given his way isn’t disgusted; it’s considerate; and something else Levi can’t place. Can’t place until Nile looks at Erwin, sweeping over his impressive body like it’s something familiar. Then Nile’s eyes, almost shaking in their sockets, lock still and Levi knows Erwin is holding him in his noose-knot eyes.

They go on in silence so long Levi crosses his arms and leans back against Erwin, fuck propriety. Without missing a beat, Erwin slides his arm down Levi’s side, squeezing his arm reassuringly before letting go entirely but not moving away his weight. 

Nile open and closes his jaw, wedging it to the side-- his eyes shoot away, breaking first -- before he’s back, something dark cocked in the corner of his mouth. “I wanted to offer my personal congratulations.”

Bitter ass.

“Thank you, Nile,” Erwin says, too sincere. 

“You got what you wanted after all these years.”

Levi’s taking his cues from Nile, so when he sees the small twitch backwards, the return of that wary look, Levi turns his head; Erwin’s grinning. He’s grinning so huge and monstrous that Levi can see where all the teeth on his left side are gone. 

“Not yet.” 

Erwin moves and Levi falls right in line, stuck at his side and burning up. The second they exit the base, Erwin hurries them down an alley, then another.

“Watch for tails. If anyone comes at us, restrain, not kill.”

It’s not the time to ask; Levi doesn’t need to question Erwin to know to do as he’s told. When they leave the alley and hit the streets, Erwin slows his pace marginally, mostly weaving through the crowds that are quick to part, and Levi matches. There’s no point dropping back or putting distance, not with them in matching green cloaks and insignia’s blazed over their bodies. 

At the inn, Erwin climbs the stairs two at a time. Their door is locked, and the room in order; doesn’t matter. Levi clears it for a stow-away assassin while Erwin goes to his bag, dumping it on the bed and scattering its contents. Clothes get tossed to the floor, an envelope of papers goes flying. 

“Where is it. Where is it. Where is it,” Erwin pants, breath coming fast and ragged. 

Levi draws back from the window; the bolt on the lock is gone; whips around to see Erwin hunched over the bed, chest heaving, hands pushing at his belongings frantically, uselessly. 

“Where is what?” Levi asks cautiously. 

“My journal. My father’s-- my father’s journal!” he roars, slapping the bed and wrenching the covers. “My father’s fucking journal. My fucking journal, Levi; they fucking took it!” He spins away from the bed, huge and terrible, pacing quick and frantic about the room, eyes roving like a trapped animal. He makes towards Levi, face red; Levi starts to pull his sword at the look in his eye; then Erwin turns sharply, clapping a hand over his face and cursing, still breathing too fast, a harsh terrible sound. He marks about the square room, helter-skelter; bashes his fist up against the wood. 

“God!” He strikes the wall again, enough that the wood dents in with a splinter and his knuckles break. Then he sags, forehead against the wood, shoulders curling in, hand falling limp at his side. “Oh, God.“ Levi stands frozen at the window, heart sick up in his throat with shame and an anxious fear.

“Erwin,” he says slowly, taking a step forward. Erwin’s shoulders jump on a sob and he rolls himself against the wall, till his back is braced and he’s staring at the bed, at the empty place where his journal should be. His father’s fucking journal. That brown leather book with the writing that no one can read, with the initials that aren’t Erwin’s. The fucking journal with blood soaked pages in the back and gunpowder in the deep creases. 

He’s not crying. Praise the saints, he isn’t crying, but his mouth is slack and red anyway, and his eyes dazed, chest still working hard with thick breaths that gush in and out of his nose, nostrils flaring. Levi approaches him cautiously but all the way, stopping within reach; he refuses to be scared of Erwin; he left a gloss of sweat on his hilt. 

“Tell me what’s happening,“ Levi demands. “Tell me what to do.”

Erwin licks his lips, draws them into his mouth; his tongue probes his cheek, right through all those missing teeth on his left side. In a careful voice, words put together like he‘s afraid they aren‘t this language at all, Erwin says: “Would you please, Levi, go ask the keeper to put together a meal for us?”

Levi closes the door on Erwin still staring at something that isn’t there.


	3. limitless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes SNK-specific slurs against intersex characters, self-hatred, mild self-inflicted pain. See end notes for more explanation.

A huge hand came meteor-quick down, cutting right into Nanaba’s arc of flight. He detached, dropping the left line with a jerk; the tension tore at his hip. He flew right, curving sharply, a hysterical cry gurgling in his throat as torque and wind . The circumvention would have pulled him straight clear if there wasn’t a pack of ominous shadows dead ahead; the scarlet rags of the comrades failed draped in trees.

Nanaba hit the cluster of Titans and pulled to a halt on a thick branch. “Fuck!” he cried, sheathing his broken blades, the last two he had and ruined anyway, and screaming out as the wires rolled back into their cases. 

“Nanaba!” 

Nanaba froze, gasping, jerking to see Lieutenant Commander Mike and Squad Leaders Zoe, Milo, Chana and Ina overseeing from a higher perch. Sun split in through the canopy, dappling the wooden Titans, the certain death they would have spelled for Nanaba, the failure of the mission. On the ground, the flagged out teammates that had fallen into the same trap sat up from their death poses below.

“Fuck,” Nanaba heaved, hands on his knees, sweat rolling from his curls. From the corner of his eye, he spied Mike shake his head, once, that strong face resolved. A decline. Hanji was already dropping down to the forest floor, walking to each of the downed cadets, making inquiries, digging into the fatal flaws of their form, their team work, their fucking dumb imbecile asses getting each other and their sorry selves killed. 

At the call for new squad assignments, Mike called for Gelgar and Stine. Milo took Nanaba as the one new member of his. Nanaba tried to keep his chin up when he filled in with Milo to run an afternoon drill. 

“Try not to look so disappointed,” Chillas whispered, bending down to Nanaba’s ear as squad leaders called for their new numbers, filling the holes bitten out from last years final expedition. “Like you’d get onto the lieutenant commander’s squad.” 

Nanaba kicked the back of Chillas’s hell; it wouldn’t do more than hurt a little in the boots. Still, Chillas jumped, elbowing Nanaba in the gut reflexively. “Don’t start with me you fucked up Abnormal.”

The two of them hit the dirt when Nanaba tackled him, another curse roaring out of his throat. “Say that again!”

They barely made it two rolls in the mud and three punches between them before Milo and Mike were dragging them apart. 

“Get off - Get off’a each other! The fuck,” Milo shouted. Mike was silent, simply picking Nanaba up and into the air while he screamed and kicked, red in the face and almost blacking out, chest heaving huge and deep. 

“Nanaba,” Mike said into his ear, a single punch of a word. Nanaba went limp, sucking in breaths. “I’m going to set you down.”

Heat and tears balled up behind Nanaba’s eyes, emotion caught like a poor fucking moth in his hands bashing itself to death trying to get out. He nodded and his feet touched the ground. Mike held loosely to his shoulders, grip restraining and -- heavy. Grounding. 

“Didn’t say anything, sir,” Chillas lied, scrubbing the back of his hand across his busted lip. The blood was already drying on Nanaba’s knuckles. 

“I can take a better guess at what you did say. It won’t stand. Take your gear off and run laps around the grounds until assignments are done then get your ass back here.”

Nanaba watched him go, teeth on edge. Mike’s hands stayed, squeezed.

“You had the best time, the best redirects of anyone,” a soft praise came tumbling to Nanaba’s ear from high above, words carefully left to fall low just for him. “Stay alive out there.”

The hands left. The entire Corp pretended they weren’t staring. 

“You too, Nanaba. Zig-zags on the grounds.” Milo made a shooing gesture, already turning away. 

Nanaba watched his feet in the dirt slowly turn, scuff, lift. Gear clinking as it came off to sit down beside the prints.  
\--  
At the end of the day when Mike broke everyone for clean up and mess, Nanaba took his time with his gear. Then he took his time cooling down, jogging the stiffness from his muscles. Then he took his time pumping buckets from the well and letting the sweat dry on his back. 

“When the Lieutenant Commander said clean up and mess, that was an order.”

Nanaba shot up from the ground, spine knocking against the fence post; lightheadedness surged over him and he stumbled; really should have eaten. Milo caught his elbow, completely unfazed as he took Nanaba’s weight. 

“For exactly that reason,” Milo sighed, chiding and tired. 

“Yes, sir, sorry, sir,” Nanaba hailed hastily, knocking a salute for a squad leader. 

“Stand up straight, son. Look at me.”

Nanaba bit the inside of his cheek, lifted his eyes, and swallowed the blood gushing into his mouth. Milo stood back with his arms crossed, looking as uncomfortable as Nanaba, truthfully. 

“Whatever Chillas said to you, he isn’t going to again. No one is going to say any shit like that again to anyone in this Corp. Understand? And if you hear any shit like that, you can hit them, and then you tell me, and I’ll hit them. And then they can run laps till they shit their pants and explain it to the good Commander why they shit their pants. Got that, soldier?”

Nanaba swallowed again and nodded. Milo clapped him on the shoulder, jostling him.

“Now. Don’t look too disappointed, but I’m switching you out of my squad”--

_Not Zoe. Don’t put me with Zoe. Don’t put me with Zoe._

\--”You’re going with Squad Leader Chana. She likes you and I think Chillas is an ass but I can’t afford to throw off my whole squad taking people out.”

Nanaba‘s quick “Yes, sir,” screamed relief.

Milo rolled off, scrubbing at the back of his head, mumbling to himself. “Get some sleep, Nanaba.”

Before that, Nanaba scrubbed off in the empty washroom. He’d pumped his own water and he’d be damned if he lets it go to waste. It’s beyond frigid, deep from underground, and tastes good too when it goes in his mouth, aside from the crawl of sweat chasing in with it. The cold makes him want to shout, but he’d done enough shouting today. He bit down. He bit down into the dark and lets his nails make red marks biting down his arms. Then he let his hands move down, over the gooseflesh shaking over his bones; the ridged, sick-spasm of his sore muscles, gut jumping. He bit down as he groped the small jut of flesh at his legs, till he couldn’t, till he had to let go, whip his hand to his mouth and bite into his wrist against the belated cry of anguish. He bit down, down, incisors ready to cut flesh, molars grinding bruised pulp. With another jolt of motion, he dove two fingers between tight lips into his too tight cunt, grunting, going to the webbing of his fingers. The flesh inside him pushed back.

He emptied the second bucket over his head when he was done scrubbing. 

Knowing sleep would be hard to come, Nanaba wandered the halls of the sleeping barracks. Hunger gnawed at his spine; the kitchens were closed. He should sleep before he gets too hungry even for that, but the thought of laying in a room of bodies, laying still inside his own body, made his skin crawl. 

A touch to his arm made him spin, throwing his whole body against the far wall and a hand out to break a hold that never came.

“Nanaba.“ Lieutenant Commander Mike’s startled expression shown in relief in the dim-lit corridor. 

Nanaba sucked in a breath, snapping a salute and a hushed “lieutenant commander” that Mike waved away. 

“I didn’t mean to startle you.” He crowded close, huge hand gentle where his fingers touched the bones of Nanaba’s wrist, easing the salute away, banishing formality in the shadows. There was no denying the jump of fright, so Nanaba ignored his words.

“What are you doing up, sir?” he inquired. Before, the halls had been chilled, refreshing; now, the lieutenant commander took up all the air, all the room, and the air rose and rose through Nanaba’s body, working up between his legs, drawn up his spine and cloudy into his mind. A million shameful thoughts came unbidden to him.

“You never retired,” Mike frowned, staring down intently at him. With that, the walls materialized distinctly; the door to the left; the cadet quarters; the lieutenant commander waiting for his errant soldier to return. Mike took in Nanaba’s widening eyes and lax mouth at the realization. He looked like he wanted to reach out again, but there was no excuse this time to touch. “I was beginning to worry, Nana.”

The short name, so sweetly said, struck Nanaba with a force to close his mouth with a click of teeth. Mike had called him this in the snow, when fever boiled over and each breath was a day’s labour. _Nana, Nana._ In the hay, sweating out of his skin. _You’ll live to fly with me, Nana._ It had seemed a dream.

Nanaba swallowed, dropping his chin down sharply to break the hold of Mike’s dark eyes. “I apologize for the trouble, sir.”

Mike stepped away, half turning. “No trouble to watch out for my soldiers.” But he didn’t go. “Milo told you of the assignment change. Chana’s squad has similar dynamics as Milo’s, so I thought it’d suit you best, but I can speak to Hanji if --”

“You think only another Abnormal will take me?” Nanaba snapped, anger stiffening him upright, chin jutted out. Already he was breathless with a fight that wouldn’t come and wouldn’t end.

“You will not call your comrade that,” Mike reprimanded, words tight and low and truly angry. “You will not call my friend that. Or yourself,” he finished with more conviction. 

Nanaba sucked in his lips, stepping back against the wall, feeling it secure against his bones. “It does not change anything to say it.”

“It does.”

Command had little part in this exchange and Mike had no authority otherwise. “You know nothing,” Nanaba argued, crossing his arms tightly, clutching his biceps, a barricade across his heart.

“Perhaps,” Mike conceded, far less angry than he deserved to be at the disrespect, catching Nanaba off guard, constantly, endlessly. “Perhaps I know nothing. But let me say this; the Survey Corp is not a refuge. It is a desperate thing for the desperate and the discontent. We get our soldiers from the brave, from the angry, from those seeking a way out. I have no idea what makes a good soldier, but I see it in you. If you ended up here because you felt chased, you are not alone in that; you are not alone here; along as you are with us, we‘re with you. I‘ll see to it.” Mike paused, breathing in deeply. A week in and Erwin really was sticking Mike with too much bullshit. “Do not disparage Hanji out of your own self-loathing. And don’t ever let the Commander hear you speak like that.”

He turned away and left quickly, leaving behind a draft, cold air filling in the hall to press against the hot tears staining Nanaba’s cheeks. On his bed, Nanaba found a wrapped plate of food and a skin of water and a hundred sleeping bodies.

\--  
The bedroom door opened with a scuff of sound; even feet and steady hands kept silent the ready chirp of ceramic; a blade slid back into its sheath.

“You’re paranoid,” Levi acknowledged, sliding the tray of food onto the little table fitted to the corner of the room.

“Prepared,” Erwin corrected, taking his hand from his dagger and sitting down. Levi served him; a few slices of salted meat, bread, butter. Stream rose from the mouth of a teapot like a smoking gun. “Spoiling us?”

“If I’m in this godforsaken city, I’m drinking decent tea.” Levi sat, flouncing out his shirt and crossing his legs. He faced the door; he too kept his blade on him. Many blades. He poured himself a cup of tea and blew across its scalding surface, perfuming his face with the aromatic steam. When after his first sip, burning and leaving behind mull of spices shivering on his lip, Levi still heard nothing. “Eat something. You won’t stop to piss once you get to the archives.”

A weary sighed blew across the table, but the noise of consumption followed. Levi nodded to himself. “Your journal.”

A pause in the noise. 

“It was the only thing they wanted.” Not a coin had gone missing otherwise.

“Anyone who’s observed me knows that I keep a private journal. Most learned men do. The journal of the newest Commander of the Survey Corp would be…it would be good to be familiar with that information.”

From the corner of his eye, Levi considered the deep frown on Erwin’s face. “That shit’s written in your backwards ass code. They’re gonna find chicken scratch.”

A wheezy laugh lost itself out of Erwin. “And depending on who reads it, they’ll know exactly what that means.”

The fraying nerve in Erwin’s voice turned Levi in his chair. “What does that mean?” he asked, weight on the word.

Erwin wiped his fingertips clean of grease, finger by finger, staring down hard at his hands. “It means two possibilities. If it was taken on Zackley’s orders, he will no doubt recognize the code; in which case, I’ll be arrested for treason by the end of the night, tortured and questioned, and eventually beheaded. You will likely suffer the same fate. I‘m sure it will be passed off as an accident that occurred on our return to the Corp.”

Erwin stared grimly into Levi’s shocked face. To put that look there -- he looked like the ground had gone out from under him. A bird with only an endless ocean beneath it. Impossibility laid out in every direction. 

“If it was not Zackely, it was someone who knows that code and can read it and they’ll be deciding what to do with me.” Now, Erwin faltered; confusion rumpled his brow. His cheek rippled as he swiped his tongue across the inside. Never before had Levi found it revolting, but now he saw in the motion the hands of the unborn pawing out from inside their mother‘s wombs. “I dare not guess who.”

“Erwin.” Levi did not let his voice shake. “What the fuck is in that journal.”

Erwin smiled apologetically. “You know already.”

Levi nodded, slumping into his chair. “Yeah.“ He kicked his feet out, staring at the door, waiting for it to burst open with Military Police. He knew the moment Erwin had touched his blade that day. “To the horizon and beyond,” he saluted, raising his teacup in a hail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After talking with a friend, we concluded that in SNK, people with mutations (for example: six fingers on one hand), or intersex people (particularly/namely secondary sex characteristics and irregular external genitalia) are feared/reviled because of their association with Titans. This does not apply to amputations (assuming they were not born missing limbs) or sense losses like blindness or deafness. It's specifically about being born outside of the bounds of the 'normal human' body. Individuals outside of these accepted bounds may also be fetishized. This aspect of the world is not a one-off and will play a role later.
> 
> Nanaba has both internal and external variation of organs and genitalia. Right now, he is presenting as a man. He does not menstruate nor does he produce sperm. 
> 
> same-sex/Same-gender attraction is NOT regarded oddly. 
> 
> additionally: In my interpenetration of the SNK universe, aside from farmers, most families do not have more than one child -- additional children are not killed but the family is taxed more rather than less. Depending on what territory, this taxation can occur as either: paying more in taxes OR receiving less grain rations from the Crown. Farming families are exempt from this limitation but they do not receive grain subsidies except during times of famine -- in which case the aid sucks anyway. (see: why mr Springer is mad) 
> 
> Just wait till we get to the prison system.
> 
> ALSO i swear Hanji will be in the story soon omg. Writing Hanji makes me so nervous cuz theyre actually my favorite.


	4. stone room

No one came for their heads. The sun set and the door sat still. No one came for their heads and so Erwin gathered himself and made for the archives, Levi hot on his heels a respectful distance behind, a wary shadow tracking the movement of the city. No one came for them at all. The clerk let Erwin and Levi into a room with a salute to the commander.

“Bring the Commander some tea; he has a long night,” Levi ordered without a passing glance. He closed the door before the clerk could offer any reason why he might not be able to do that.

“I can’t bring you anywhere,” Erwin complained; it sounded reflexive. His shoulders were practically at his ears with the tension in him.

“I might as well enjoy myself before the King beheads me,” Levi said with a wave of his hand. He scoped out the small room. There was a writing desk set up, and a few boxes tagged with red, indicating their relevance to the Horizon; Zackley had prepared the place for Erwin to move quickly through the information. No, it did not seem likely Zackley was behind Erwin’s missing journal unless he was biding his time.

Erwin said nothing to that. He had already begun pulling reports from the folders, dropping them in heaps on the floor; it was the same pseudo-map building tactic he used when plotting squad positions. Levi slouched against the wall by the door, palm resting on the butt of his sword as a comfort to himself.

“What can I do?” Levi asked after a minute as Erwin sat at the desk with a report, skimming it quickly.

“Nothing.” He tossed it back onto the ground and picked up another paper.

“It would go faster if you told me what I can look for.” He already knew he’d go ignored. He did. Erwin had his back to him, busy mumbling to himself. He twitched when a knock came to the door, but with Levi there, he had no reason to worry about his back being turned. Besides, it was only a confused clerk with tea. Small graces.

Levi paced the room hours later after his tea was gone, eyeing the carnage of Erwin’s digging. Right now, Erwin had a pamphlet in hand; it’d been made on a press, by the look of it. Rudimentary, perhaps, given how much the ink had bled, but still, it implied resources of the maker that probably troubled Zackley and Fiskus a great deal. That perhaps the angry upstarts Horizon were more than peasant farmers. Erwin had his face half-buried in one hand, fingers lanced across his brow, over his eyes, as if to shield himself from the words printed there. Levi squinted over the curl of Erwin’s shoulders, reading slowly, tonguing the words against his teeth.

“Is that an advertisement for reading lessons?”

Erwin jerked; Levi had vanished to the far background of his mind. He smiled, bright and charming. “An educated people are a dangerous people,” he recited.

Levi stepped backwards, unnerved by the daring radiance Erwin had cast out around him. “An armed people are a dangerous people,” he argued, toeing at a stack of papers.

“Oh, yes, no doubt about it. But when everyone is done fighting, what will be the next step.” Erwin’s voice was off; he was remembering. Levi could feel ghosts curling out of the stones of the room. “You go where you know, you know where you go. But if that was all, then sailors would be scholars.”

“What the fuck is a sailor?”

Erwin’s smile slipped off his face. He blinked rapidly, then looked down at the pamphlet in his hand. Levi edged the stack at his foot again until it spilled over, sheets shushing across the floor. One nearly black with writing fluttered towards Erwin’s foot. Levi frowned at it until Erwin, seeing Levi’s dark look, gathered his wits to look down as well.

“That looks like…,” Levi murmured, cocking his head. There was a snap of tension in the room; he lunged and grabbed the paper, practically throwing himself onto the ground as Erwin tried to snatch it up, hitting his elbow harshly on the writing table.

“Levi.” Erwin rose from his seat, rubbing the joint of his elbow. “Let me see that.”

“This is your handwriting,” Levi accused, moving back quickly, paper in hand, staring at it like the words would make sense. At first, he thought it was in that code, that jumbled no-man’s language, but the more he looked, the more he realized no; it was plain; it was beautiful; looping expressive words; the madness of the writing came from two letters penned over each other. One down, one across. It looked so much like Erwin’s hand. The same slant, the same gesture there; even the letters echoed with him. Levi had spent enough time watching him write, kissing the ink on his fingertips. He had felt that writing on his body.

“Give it to me,” Erwin ordered. He was squared off across from Levi; Levi could hear him breathing in the quiet.

“Why are we here, Erwin?” Levi questioned, standing his ground, thumb pinching a dent in the letter. It was signed _with eternal love - Yours._ It was all he could make out, a neat sign off in the corner, disengaged from anything else. “You’ve told me nothing more than the threat of death and a half-assed explanation that you write in the code of the Horizon.”

And not even that. Barely that. Erwin has been cryptic and guarded since they left the meeting, leaving Levi to make guesses.  
Erwin clenched his hands at his side, leaning forward but his feet didn’t lift from the ground. “I don’t write in their code,” he spat. “The Horizon are fools. Dead fools.”

“They’re not dead anymore,” Levi reminded. Erwin snorted, shifting his weight. “Why are we here,” he repeated.  
“I need to know how much Zackley knows.”

“Yes, you said that. You said that to him. Now tell me what the fuck we’re doing. What the fuck you’re doing here.”

“Who are you to make demands of me,” Erwin barked, teeth clicking on the edge of his anger. He stalked forward, intent. “Do you not consider that you’re a liability right now? That this information is above you? Hand over the letter and stand at the ready until ordered otherwise.”

He came chest to chest with a wide-eyed Levi; Levi whose hands were limp at his side, blade untouched, letter gone loose in his fingertips. The slapped look of hurt on Levi’s face dampened, hardened in a moment. In the heat of his temper, Erwin registered the shuttered, closed look overcoming Levi. He caught himself reflected in gray eyes; he looked like a menace. He worked his jaw open; it popped.

“Levi,” he murmured, reaching up to curl a hand around the back of his neck; Levi sidestepped him, twisting away like Erwin’s hand was a brand.

“Don’t you dare,” Levi threatened, low, low, his voice was low and his body was a whiplash in wait. Erwin hesitated, watching Levi watch him, but he took Levi by the back of the neck anyway, despite the sneer of teeth, thumb rubbing up behind Levi’s ear where he knew tension waited. Levi half-drew his sword, a slice of metal ringing in the stone room, but Erwin backed him against the wall with three steps, knocking the blade squarely back into its sheath with his hip. Levi clutched at Erwin’s wrist with one hand, nails scraping on his skin, but he put up little fight aside from that, choosing instead to glare like death.

“Levi, listen to me,” Erwin begged, leaning over him, pulling Levi’s head back with a firm grip so he was forced to consider Erwin’s gaze.

“No; you cannot play lover and Commander at once,” Levi protested, baring his teeth, trying to crush Erwin’s bones in his hand. He could hurt Erwin better, more truly, if he wanted; he didn’t want.

“I will always be lover and Commander with you,” Erwin insisted, steadier now, steady circles with his thumb. Levi had nails in him, was pulling his flesh, making him bleed. Levi’s eyes were narrow and scared. “Listen, please; let me pretend at least I can spare you from my own problems. If I had known this was going to happen, I wouldn’t have brought you, wouldn’t have made it so obvious that you are,” he searched Levi’s eyes for the word, “mine. So thoroughly mine that I shirk my own lieutenant commander to bring you to a meeting above your rank in his stead. And now, I have surely condemned you to whatever fate is now coming for me. Let me proceed now with the illusion that the less you know, the better the chance that you will not be dragged down with me.”

“You will make dead fools of us both.” Levi let go of Erwin’s wrist in place of knocking a fist against Erwin’s chest, over his heart. He left a stain of Erwin’s blood on his white shirt in a morbid salute. “Fiskus will gut me the first chance he gets, regardless if I know anything or not.”

Erwin looked down at Levi‘s fist over his heart. “I know.”

Erwin had strong-armed Shadis into Erwin’s plan to acquire Levi. Half the Corp expected Levi to kill someone when they slept. Levi’s crimes had not been banished when he joined the Survey Corp; as far as the Military Police were concerned, he was a dead man walking. But that didn’t mean that even the slightest whiff of Levi’s involvement in something like this wouldn’t end with his head rolling.

Levi shivered, closing his eyes and leaning back into Erwin’s touch, bending his neck for Erwin to soothe the notches of his spine. That calloused grip wrought love up from his fucking bones. “My life has been yours for far too long for you to start feeling guilty now.”

Erwin brought him to his chest and kissed the black part of his hair. “I know that too.”

He took the letter from Levi when they parted; Levi wiped the blood from his fingers with a kerchief, grumbling to himself. “Let me see your wrist,” he said. “Idiot; when I say ‘don’t’,” he shook his head. “You deserved that.”

He looked up, ready to pester, but stopped himself; Erwin had his knuckled pressed to his lips; his eyes darted back and forth as he read the letter. Read it through, turned it, and read the impossible second scrawl overtop. He looked exhausted and terribly young with pain pinching his eyes. Levi could guess; a love letter from Erwin to someone in the Horizon. That would explain it. It would be Erwin to find himself in bed with someone intent on the fall of the monarchy and chaos for the last of Humanity. That would make sense.

Levi pried his hand away from his mouth to wrap the seep of blood darkening Erwin’s cuff. He’d ask nothing to spare himself more lies. He knew a scared man when he saw one. The look faded from Erwin as the hours of the night passed, but Levi did not miss that only that letter left the stone room, folded away into Erwin’s jacket.  
\--  
It was just less than a weeks ride between the Survey Corp base and the capital. Erwin insisted they return to the base, even if he had to turn around the next day to return to the meeting with Zackley. The high stone streets of the capital gave way to mucky roads through the lowers towns, and then to winding crippled trails with wheel ruts for guidelines. Everywhere smelled like dark soil; the fields were being turned. Draft horses pulled groaning hoes row after row; farmers near born with their backs bent like withered trees plodded, dots on the horizon, grave faces to pass. Commander and captain took up when the opportunity presented itself, but Erwin had a hard pace and no sooner had the horses rested and ate than they were off again. Levi wondered what pressed him on more; leaving Sina or returning to base.

The cadets at the stable saluted sharply, happy greetings for their commander and captain. Erwin made a passing inquiry about the state of things, nodding and smiling distantly, before hurrying inside.

“Commander. Captain Levi. I didn’t expect you for another day,” Mike saluted Erwin briefly, more keen on pulling his friend into a more intimate hold. To Levi’s surprise, expecting Erwin to hurry through all this, his mind a mess like it seemed, Erwin did more than allow it; he gave his weight to Mike, just a moment, pressing his forehead to Mike’s and exhaling in a low, shaken breath. “Is all well?” Mike inquired softly, slow to put any distance between them. He flicked his eyes from Erwin to Levi, who gave nothing away on his face.

“I have much to do, my friend,” Erwin said peaceably. He patted Mike’s arm, finally sliding out of the embrace; hands lingered between them, on hips and sides. Levi looked away; it was not jealousy that averted his eyes but confusion. That same confusion showed itself in Mike’s quizzical brow. But Erwin gave nothing else away, drawing upright, every inch the Commander he had been made.

“I expect you completed squad reassignments and ran pre-ex assessments.”

“Yes, sir. The reports are detailed; you locked your office, so they aren’t on your desk yet.”

“That’s fine. I’ll take them from you now.” The three of them moved down the halls. Anyone coming stepped aside with salutes. “Were there ay problems in my absence? I know it was not the best time to leave the base, but Zackley doesn’t offer opportunity to settle into the role.” Erwin spoke as if nothing had been disturbed in the natural order of things.

Mike hesitated with his next words, but he was truthful. “How many soldiers do you suspect are of the Third?”

“Why?” Erwin asked sharply, eyes on Mike.

“Did someone say something stupid?” Levi guessed.

Mike grunted. “I’d like to make sure that they have not experienced anything that makes them doubt their place here.”

“I have not personally looked at medical exams. The last round was with Shadis; I give you permission to make note of Third individuals but do not approach them on this issue unless you observe a problem. As for people who are demonstrating ignorance and incivility, I will see to their discipline.” That was a promise. Mike nodded. Shadis had been decent about such matters, but Erwin took such offenses personally. It stirred rumors about him, ones that followed him even from his days in the Military Police, but Erwin had no mind for them. Felt no shame.

“Mike,” Erwin continued, “where is Hanji?”

“They’re fine,” Mike answered.

Erwin lifted an eyebrow, stopping his pace. “Not what I asked. Where are they?”

Mike blushed with embarrassment at his presumption. Levi snorted. “They’re tinkering.”

“Ah.” Erwin looked pleased. Oh yes; now that Erwin was Commander, Hanji would have their way far more often. They hadn’t lost a day, even if Erwin had only just now submitted the budget report to Zackley. “Pass on your reports to Levi. I must speak with Hanji immediately.” He took down the next hall without a backwards glance.

“Unlock your office,” Mike called after him.

Erwin waved a hand, not slowing. “Levi, permission to pick my lock.”

“What a bastard,” Mike sighed, scrubbing a hand over his hair. His bangs flopped back into his eyes. He needed a trim. He opened his mouth for a request, expecting to find Levi smirking at him with some snooty pull of his lips, but Levi was staring after Erwin, face twisted up in dark thought. “Levi? What‘s wrong?”

Levi blinked hardly, dropping his head down so that his hair obscured his expression, but Mike could hear the tight swallow, see the flex of his neck. “Nothing.”

Before Mike could press anymore, Levi flicked his hair back, fixing it neatly with his fingers. “You’re mangy looking. Every time I leave this place, you go to shit.”

Mike smiled despite the obvious redirection. “I have no one to impress with you gone.”

Levi rolled his eyes. Mike shoved him lightly, grateful to still have this with Levi. Have at least this. He still thought of unwrapping Levi, of digging his hands into him; god he thought of fucking Levi, of night without end and the smell of hot metal. But he was not Erwin -- the thought gave him pause. The eager embrace Erwin had given him, desperation coming off in waves. He had smelled like woe. And Levi smelled like a powder keg.

“So your favorite got into a scrape?”

Mike shook his head, clearing the thoughts. “My favorite?”

“That little one. From that godforsaken escort trip.”

“Nanaba.” Mike corrected immediately, catching himself too late, looking away. They continued down the hall towards Erwin’s room.

“You’re transparent. They’re Third?”

“You know better than to ask for information like that,” Mike chastised lightly.

Levi faltered in his step. “Silly me,” he mumbled.  
\---

The Survey Corp bought their swords and gas cans from contracted makers, but the same way Garrison soldiers were trained for canon maintenance, the Corp soldiers learned the care and repairing of their equipment. Through the years, forward thinking soldiers of note had put in a combined effort to create a space for mechanical experimentation. Hanji Zoe had taken it to the next level in their short time in the Corp.

“Perfect timing!”

Erwin had no sooner stepped into the area, a huge clearing with a small shed and a modest smithy, than Hanji had appeared out of nowhere, dragging him by the elbow behind a slender canon. From its barrel jutted a spear tip. Erwin allowed Hanji to dance him around without complaint; patience was a virtue when it came to Hanji, and Erwin had never known a time where he was not rewarded by their thoughts.

Hanji let go of Erwin’s elbow to pat the canon. The air smelled like smoke and metal and when Hanji flapped their arms, of sweat. Erwin folded his hands behind his back and inclined his head, a smile appearing despite his troubled mind.

“I finally have a working design for the spears. The ones to capture us a Titan? I’m still working on a way to secure the wires that won’t require all of us to whore ourselves out -- really whore. Filthy whoring. Levi would hate me if I made us be filthy whores -- but the weight and durability is perfected.”

Bandages wrapping both of Hanji’s forearms gave Erwin plenty of indication about the trouble they had gone to in their creation. Hanji hefted a spear up from the ground, showing it off to Erwin.

“The head isn’t a separate piece. I soldered it to a pole that makes up the core of the shaft and used a wood frame then beveled the end. It won’t break apart like the last design but it isn’t too heavy to transport. Moblit!”

Hanjs frazzled assistant appeared with a striker. Erwin could only guess that, for the safety of his dear friend, Moblit had hidden the means of explosion away.

“Light it up. The Commander needs a demonstration.” Hanji spun back to Erwin and Moblit double checked the canon and its aim. “I scarified distance, but it’s not like we would risk anything on a far shot. A three meter, that’s all I want. We can dig a big ditch and--

“Squad leader, Commander,” Moblit beckoned. Erwin shifted his attention from his vibrating genius to the fruit of their labour. They all covered their ears; a thunderclap of sound; a cloud of smoke that burned nose hairs; in the distance, a tree splintered apart in a shower of wood and leaves, the spear driven half through the trunk.

“Brilliant,” Erwin grinned, clapping a hand on Hanji’s shoulder, shirt sweaty and stiff under his hand despite the cool spring day. “When you figure out the wires, I will personally start digging your pit.”

Hanji shoved their goggles on top of their head, hair sticking out wildly. “Yes, sir!”

Erwin squeezed his hand on Hanji’s shoulder. “Moblit, fetch that spear.”

Moblit saluted. He grabbed an axe and made off for the wasted tree. Erwin steered Hanji into the shadow of the shed, picking up what he hoped was a cup of water and forcing it into Hanji’s shaking hands. They didn’t argue, but drank greedily, nodding to themselves. When the cup was drained, they sighed loudly, scrubbing a hand across their mouth.

“So, Commander,” Hanji tapped a fingernail black with soot against Erwin’s bolo tie, “how was Sina?”

Erwin inhaled deeply, drawing the last traces of the canon smoke that floated thin in the air. It was nothing like the sweet leaf Levi had given him just a week ago. With ash in his mouth now, he couldn’t seem to recall the tender kisses they’d shared. “I received a report that the Horizon are possibly active again; their name has been invoked recently in connection to civilian riots.”

“Oh yeah?” Hanji rubbed at their mouth again, picking their chapped lips. “That’s not surprising. Anyone who wants to stir people up can claim to be Horizon. Even people who don’t know much knew ‘bout those massacres.“ They dunked their cup into a bucket of water and sat down on a workman’s bench.

Massacre. Only people who’d seen a massacre knew what that word meant: slipping on stone steps washed in blood; opened guts and skulls and the air sticky with death; get up get up please.

But every Survey Corp soldier knew massacre.

“That’s true,” Erwin agreed. He would have believed it too if not for his journal being taken. It was more than just someone taking up an old banner. It felt like ghosts come back to settle the business of the living.

“They’re all dead. Killed,” Hanji added, taking a drink to hide the harshness of their voice, the grim line of their mouth. “Wiped out.”

Erwin inclined his head. “And yet,” he said slowly, feeling the words on his tongue like the trigger of a gun, “here you are.”

It took the words a breath to catch up, then Hanji cackled, head thrown back. They patted their knee in delight; sunlight glinted in flashes off their goggles. Hanji’s grin was quick and feral. They became a coiled danger, all potential energy. “If I didn’t know you better, Erwin, I’d accuse you of generalizing me for being a Third.”

Erwin hummed. His pulse was beating out of the veins in his wrist. The gashes from Levi’s nails throbbed. He could trust them. He could trust Hanji. He could trust Hanji because she had trusted Hanji. Because she had told him to trust Hanji. He touched the letter in his pocket. The edges were smooth with handling. “You can trust me, Hanji.”

Hanji regarded him with a cocked head. Erwin had become a curious puzzle to figure out. “You’re the Commander. Of course I trust you. But I know that you were Military Police before this, and now you come riding back from the capital and accuse me of being part of the Horizon; that’s,” their bravado cracked; hurt slipped in; “not very nice.”

Erwin nodded, closing his eyes. “I need you to trust me not as your Commander, but as a friend, Hanji. I need someone I can trust as well. Badly, very badly.“

This was wrong, all of it, wrong. He had only just become Commander; this, them, whoever was behind the cry of Horizon, they’d been biding their time with him. Waiting. Now Erwin had everything to lose, his dreams finally a possibility. He had the Survey Corp; he had soldiers who would die for him. He had Levi, who made victory a possibility with every swing of his blade. No one was going to fuck this up.

“I believe whoever is posing as the Horizon intends to blackmail me. While Levi and I were in Sina, our room was broken into and my personal journal was taken. It contains sensitive information that could cost me my life, and by proxy, Levi’s. Maybe do a great deal of damage to the Corp. Do you know anything, do you have any communication with anyone, still associating with Horizon? Anyone from your past?”

Hanji crossed their arms, looking away and stiffening their jaw. “No.”

“Hanji,” Erwin pressed. “I’ll take any lead.”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Hanji defended. “I wasn’t in the Horizon!” They gasped in a breath after the outburst, then grinned, manic and bright. “They wouldn’t take me. Thought I was a liability.”

“And if they had, you’d have died with them,” Erwin reprimanded harshly. Hanji would have been another body. “Instead, you had Goti.”

Bang.

The word was a trigger. Hanji surged to their feet, vibrating with restraint; Hanji was all kinetic energy, fit to burst. “Stop playing games with me, Erwin,” Hanji demanded.

Erwin held up his hands, blood rushing to his head, face red with it. “Goti,“ he repeated, a one word plea. “Goti told you, before she died, that someone in the military would keep an eye on you.”

Hanji gave nothing away. Bless them. Hanji would be so true and sharp with more time. Goti had been right, of course she had.  
“Think Hanji, when have I ever given you reason to doubt me?”

“That’s just it,” Hanji shouted, throwing out their hands; they clutched their head, pulling on their hair, covering their ears and humming loudly, eyes squeezed shut. “You’ve been too good to me,” they managed in a high tone through their teeth.

Erwin stepped close to them; he turned slightly to see Moblit at a stop, some distance away, out of ear shot. It was plain that the Commander and his squad leader were having a private conversation. Smart boy. “Hanji,” he soothed. “I have always been looking out for you. And we are truly friends, are we not?”

Hanji nodded, leaning forward to rest their head on Erwin’s collarbone, under his chin. Far too intimate for out in the open. But had becoming Commander robbed him of all this, this right to care for those around him? He could be lover and Commander. He would do better than all those before him. He rubbed his hand on the back of Hanji’s neck as they quieted.

“Mother did say…,” Hanji mumbled. “But she told me nothing about you.”

Erwin looked up at the cloudless sky, to the sun; it filled him up until he became the black spots burned across his vision. Tear came and went. “For both our sake,” he managed. He patted Hanji’s back and stepped away. Their face was splotchy, but the only emotion their was determination, a clinical edge shaping their eyes.

“Erwin,” Hanji snagged him by the sleeve. “If I hear anything. I’ll tell you.”

Erwin smiled, folding his hand over Hanji’s. “Keep it between us. Don’t tell Levi I said anything to you.”

Hanji drew their brows down in question, but Moblit was trotting back to them, waving the spear. It hadn’t broken, although the wood upon closer inspection sported a thin crack. They likely wouldn’t last more than two rounds. They’d have to get a Titan in one. Erwin made a show of inspecting it, and it eased Hanji back to the present, away from dead mothers.

Goti. Erwin tucked his hand into his pocket to caress the soft edge of the [letter](http://stillmadaboutpetra.tumblr.com/post/148000295303/a-letter-sender-unknown-recipient-unknown).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Third is the snk 'politcally correct' term for intersex individuals. it's a generalized way to refer to people of 3rd 4th and 5th sex. A nice crash course on intersex composites and theory is fausto-sterlings "the five sexes" 
> 
> hanji's remark about erwin generalizing them for being Third in relation to joining Horizon refers to Horizon's general anti-establishment cause and anarchist agenda. it attracted a lot of Thirds because Thirds deal with a fuckload of bullshit. will get into bullshit later
> 
> Hey thanks for reading. This is more plot-focused than anyone probably expected from me. I'm trying my hand at writing something with a core plot. I do want to maintain the atmospheric prose that "en route" had but things are definitely happening. This will be a long ride. 
> 
> please let me know what you are enjoying and if the suspense is there :)


	5. the midnight hour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for gendered slurs used in a violent situation, massacre, graphic depictions of violence, oral injuries, character having a brief panic attack.

A shaken energy poured off Levi. He picked Erwin’s lock with a twist of a metal prong, bumping the door open with his hip, throwing himself into the Commander’s high-backed chair with a gusty sigh while Mike puttered about, dropping off his reports and sorting through drawers to find medical files on all their soldiers. 

“Open the window, it’s stuffy in here,” Levi griped, kicking his feet onto the desk and closing his eyes, chin down to his chest. Mike did as he was told, stopping to wind the clock gone still on Erwin’s desk as well. He found himself on the couch against the wall, licking his thumb and splitting stacks of papers.

“I never asked,” Mike dared into the silence, “how you felt about my promotion.” 

“I don’t,” Levi drawled from off out of the corner of Mike’s eye, a dozing figure that should be other places and wasn’t. 

Levi had congratulated Mike in lieu of an apology for not being able to kiss him back. He really didn’t feel. Besides, evidently Erwin wanted to prevent Levi from ever being in a position to formally question his decisions.

“You’re squad’s in that stack,” Mike added, humming as he read over Nanaba’s file. They were older than he thought originally; twenty two. They’d given enlistment a whole extra year past the minimum age, then. Maybe they weren’t running from their own shadow. 

“How long have you known Erwin?” Levi blurted. He kicked the chair back, feet slamming onto the floor. Mike scratched his nose, setting down the paper in his hand. 

“Met him when he transferred to the Survey Corp from the Military Police. That was five years ago. He was twenty three.” 

Levi had his hands braced on Erwin’s desk. “He transferred from the Military Police?”

Mike made a noise. “He was a Police Captain.” Levi scowled, revulsion painted across his face. Mike found himself laughing meanly, something about the absurdism of _those two_ keeping secrets so dumbly obvious. “You had no idea, huh?”

“Why the fuck would he join the Corp?” Levi barreled on, ignoring Mike’s mockery. Blood pounded high in his head. After Farlan and Isabel were killed, Levi had locked up words of his past; Erwin never questioned him on it, and Levi had repaid the favor. He’d known Erwin was a military man through and through, but not in the Police division. There had been jokes and scorn from Military Police that Levi had always associated simply with Erwin being in the Survey Corp, not quite seeing the line that was Erwin transferring from the Military Police. A captain. A fucking captain. That was a career position, that was good pay and perks and doing what you liked while people looked the other way.

“Why not ask him?” Mike folded his arms, turning so his back was against the couch and his feet on the ground rather than the lazy sprawl he had earlier. 

“I’m asking you, Mike.”

“What brought it on?”

“Nile,” Levi said with a wave of his hand, slouching once more. He crossed his arm, the picture of petulance. 

“Ah. Nile.” Mike shook his head. “Erwin’s old sore spot.”

“Yeah,” Levi shrugged. “He was at the meeting as Fiskus’s LC.”

Mike hummed. From the open window, he could hear the scuffle of people training, the barks of orders from squad leaders. Levi was transparent. He was after something else, but his obvious lack of knowledge on these younger parts of Erwin was clear as day. “Erwin doesn’t talk about himself much. First few weeks he was here, Nile used to come around; they did a good mix of fighting for a pair of best friends. He married Erwin’s girl, you know, after Erwin left the MP.”

“The girl,” Levi probed, ignoring the Nile thing to Mike‘s surprise, “she and Erwin, they write love letters?”

“Oh, sure. Erwin wrote a lot of letters back in the day. Probably why Nile was always around being angry.” Mike could close his eyes and remember a younger man with blond hair a mess over his eyes, dabbing ink and scratching away on sheets of paper. Mike used to lay there, Erwin‘s come cooling on his thighs, watching him as the sun went down. One day, Erwin was gone from base for a few days; came back grim and didn’t write again that Mike saw. “All that eternally yours lover crap. ”

Levi nodded jerkily. He nodded again, as Mike watched, face all screwed up and lips moving without sound. That long-drop sensation filled the room. Levi was going and gone right there, leg bouncing wildly, heel of his boot never tapping down, just shaking away. Mike looked away. Even when he got though searching out the Thirds, shaking his head out how many poor souls thought the Corp was the best thing this world would give them, he didn’t leave. 

The sun came slanting into the window, ready to roll down behind Maria. Mike stood up, arching his stiff back, bones popping in protest. “Levi. Hey, Levi.”

Levi sucked in a breath. “What?”

Mike looked out the window; Erwin was down with the soldiers, talking to Chana and her squad. He spied out Nana‘s curly head. “Why don’t you go wash up before everyone stampedes to the baths?”

Levi picked himself up out of the chair slowly, like an old man. “You know, Mike, Erwin really thinks you could take care of the Corp if something happened to him.”

Mike turned from the window; the light blinded him in one eye. 

“I’d follow you too,” Levi promised. “I’m not his.”

It sounded like a lie. It was.

“Thank you, Levi,” was all Mike could think to say. 

\--  
There was little time at the base between returning from Sina and having to go back. Neither Erwin nor Levi went to each other in that time, sleeping in their own beds. There was little time for Erwin to sleep. Hanji hadn’t any news, and Erwin should be focused on his first expedition as Commander, not troubling himself dreaming of faces he can’t remember.

A finger checked an X over the nape of his neck. “Get up.”

“Levi?”

Erwin lifted his head from his arms. His face cracked; Levi stroked the dried remains of tears that stiffened his skin. “Weeping in your sleep,” Levi observed softly. Sweet. He was being sweet, rubbing the juts of Erwin’s cheekbones. “You don’t come to me and you sit here crying over your desk.”

Erwin hummed, eyes falling shut. He could feel the sand of tears now, rolling back into his skull. He ached all over, ached past his own bones into his father’s bones too. “Didn’t think you’d want me anyway.”

“I didn’t.”

Levi was too good sometimes, never lying a bit to Erwin. He came around like the midnight hour, honest and true and there with a tick-tock. “Get up now, get to your bed proper.” He was too little for Erwin to be slinging an arm around his shoulder, so Levi settled for dragging Erwin with an arm around him instead, bumping their bodies like they had business to settle. It was a short speechless walk from office to bedroom, just a bit of traipsing in the dark hall. Even the torches had been put to rest. Levi’d gone creeping in the dark to drag his sorry-eyed Commander to bed.

The bed bent as Erwin sat on it, hunched over himself, elbows bolted to his knees and head a rock in his hand. Levi knelt between his legs to work off his boots. Then his socks, which Levi discarded with a wrinkled nose though he caressed the tight tendon of Erwin’s ankle. When Levi pushed, Erwin fell back, let Levi strip him out of his clothes, bite his thighs and roll him into bed, climbing up over his body.

“Tired,” Erwin slurred. He opened his mouth for the kiss. Levi had licorice on his lips. Candies. The candies someone had sent Erwin. He’d given them to Levi. 

“Say it to me.”

Erwin licked after him, slow and dreaming. “I’ll say anything.”

“With eternal love.” Levi had one eye, a black gem in the midnight light. The rest of him was lost to the night. Erwin stroked the velvet shadows of his face. 

“I’m yours,” he promised. 

“You say that to your girl, hmm?” Levi lowered himself to kiss Erwin and stopped at the sad smile and sorry-eyed look on his face. 

“Don’t have a girl.” Erwin pulled him in closer, a hand on the back of Levi’s neck. “Have you.”

“Lucky bastard for it,” Levi chuffed, ducking under the covers and kissing his way down Erwin’s body. A sigh left Erwin’s lips as Levi took his time, mouth hot on each of his nipples, nose brushing across chest hair, down the valley of his ribs. A lazy hand in Levi’s hair played drifting guide, but Erwin was grateful to lay back, to half-sleep as Levi forgave him all over his wretched body, scars fresh graves Levi uncovered for ritual prayers in the slipping seconds they shared between sheets. 

A hand in Levi’s hair, Erwin thought how strong this man is. A skull beneath his fingers; bridgework bones of his spine rising; Erwin folded the lobe of Levi’s ear in his fingers, twiddling until Levi smacked his hand away; chased his fingers with harmless nips; kissed beggarly at his palms; licked the veins that swelled to the surface of Erwin’s skin. When Erwin’s breaths grew deep and sharp, hissing through his teeth, Levi materialized to stem them, a tight fist around his cock, eyelashes all Erwin could see, the edge of blades feathered out over cheekbones. 

Levi cleaned him up, took his time with lingering hands. Erwin’s attempts to slip Levi out of his bedclothes were rebuffed, to neither of their surprise. Levi liked to be touched when he liked, and not when he didn‘t. Erwin’s attempts instead broke him out of whatever fond thoughts had let his hands caress Erwin all over; the Commander found himself pinned to his bed, his knees around Levi’s shoulders, his spent cock trying to perk up for whatever intention Levi had for him. 

“Thought you wanted me to go to bed? Guess I should ignore you more often,” Erwin teased, lazy and unguarded. Sleep was distant now. 

“So you admit that you were ignoring me.” Levi ducked his head down to bite painfully at Erwin’s nipples, nothing like the lover kisses from earlier. It hurt, and the jar of pain made Erwin lock his legs around Levi’s neck. “There’s been no mention of the Horizon from you, nothing. You haven’t asked me to return to Sina with you for this next meeting.” 

Erwin rolled his head to the side. It was rare he avoided eye contact, and it didn’t suggest good tidings. “You’re not to come.”

“And whose gonna watch your ass? You were paranoid last time in the city; ready to pull a blade on me.”

“Hanji– ow Levi!”

Levi dug his thumb into the pit of Erwin’s knee. “Hanji? They’re more likely to get you killed than not. Even Zackley dislikes Hanji more than he dislikes me.”

“I’m drawing my enemies out.” Erwin took up Levi’s hands, wrestling with him. This was a conversation more suited to release during a spar, a tumble in the dirt. But Erwin’s large bed played battleground and playground in equal turn. Levi never cared for the decorum suited to a place; he was his own constant self, regardless. Vinegar and honey.

“You’re worrying me into an early grave is what. Between that and the Titans I’ll be dead any day.”

“You’re overreacting,” Erwin huffed, flipping them over; he reversed their positions, crunching Levi into a nearly immobile fold of limbs. “No one will be fool enough to approach me with you near ,” he pointed out. “Hanji creates the illusion of susceptibility.”

Levi was a legend. No one forgot the wrathful creature he became on the field, nor the malice he’d been in the streets. Mike was just as formidable but Levi’s shrowd of mystery and his constant presence at Erwin’s side only prompted more intrigue. Only the too-stupid would dare anything with a guard dog at his heels. 

Levi didn’t bother to struggle against Erwin, just thunked his head against the pillows, consternation in his knitted brow. “Fucking…you’re fucking…” he grit his teeth, stuck-sounding frustration choked on his throat. Erwin eased up on the hold he had, letting out the tension in Levi’s limbs. Levi swallowed, gone lax. “Lying to me.”

Erwin let out a shaky breath, sitting back on his heels. “I’m trying not to lie to you, Levi. I thought silence would be better; you always see through me.”

“And I see a lot of bullshit these days,” Levi groused, propping up on his elbows. Erwin smiled, giving in with a nod of his head. Levi grunted. “You’re scared.”

“Yes.”

“Because they have dirt on you, your father‘s journal.” 

Dirt. Blackmail. As if it were that simple. Erwin had long given up worrying about when and where his head would roll; he’d die, he’d die terribly. He’d been running from a bloody death for so long, when the time came, he’d drop to his knees. Just, not yet, not like this. It wasn’t death that troubled him, but failing to find the truth. To know. And make sure everyone else knew. His father wasn’t mad, his father hadn’t died for nothing. They all hadn’t died for Erwin to do nothing. 

God, for it to be the _Horizon,_ of all names that would haunt him. Erwin had only to close his eyes and remember the end of their truthful ways: silence behind the wooden door. The air muggy with blood, gunpowder and metal in the air. He’d seen animals slaughtered, hung up and blood-let from the throat. But that room -- Aless, still sitting at the table, head tipped back and his brain on the wall behind him, never again to call him son. 

Dead. Dead. Stumbling down the steps, into pools of blood. It’s dark and sticky and doesn’t do anything special, just sticks all over him. Reaching for Claudi, seeing her hand twitch and rolling her over to see the nothing in her eyes, that new white blindness of death. 

_Crying like he was, of course he doesn’t hear the door open and close. But blood has a noise, and the stirring along the soaked ground gives him enough time to look up from the still bodies surrounding him to catch the blunt of a rifle on the side of his face, cracking his molars in a shattering of tooth and blood instead of skull and brain. He falls to the floor, his bleeding face fresh and hot, pressed up against Annalise’s stone-stiff cheek, her mouth an open cry of pain, last breath a dry rasp on her lips, protruding tongue there, so close, nearly in his eye it’s going to touch him it’s going to lick him dry tongue a rust of flesh on his wet eye. He’s screaming blood, spitting and aching, face caved in on pain, screaming, the same basement deep that kept these meetings safe, wine cellar chill air, keeps him down there in the dead-dark._

_“Where are the others?”_

_Annalise’s beautiful eyes have a crust of dirt scratched over the blue._

_He’s pissing himself and crying over the muzzle of a gun and saying “wait, wait,” and she does, she does, staring hard._

_“I know you.” The woman. She’s a gray silhouette. Older. She’s a fuzzy memory. Her face makes his head hurt. He can’t move his jaw. He’s dumb mute. She’s not shooting him, not beating him, just looking like Erwin’s the most interesting thing in the goddamn room._

_Erwin swallows blood, chips of teeth -- and then he_  
_He--_  
_Annalise always liked her knives._  
_She showed him how._  
_Again and again._  
_Her wide eyes make his head hurt. In the stomach and the chest. Down into the old blood, making a boil, a froth coming out of her chest, the lungs wheezing and foaming and blood as pink as flowers. He stabs her._  
_There’s more than this. More than this wretched world. More. Again. Again. There’s more._  
_Fuck you. Cunt. Fucking cunt. Murdering bitch. Again. Harder. In the face. You killed them you killed them you killed them theyre all dead you killed them im going to kill you_  
_I am killing you_

Fingertips hesitantly brush up his arm. Erwin sobbed out a ragged breath, a chilled sweat slick over his whole body.

“Raze the Walls, Erwin,” Levi cursed, taking hold of him in a fierce hug, pulling Erwin down into the shield of his small body. “I’ll kill them, I’ll kill them,” he promised savagely as Erwin sucked in breath after breath, muscles spasming _and he cant keep his breathing down, it’s slipping out faster than he can get it in, he’s slipping_ \-- a crack of sound got its way out of his mouth and Erwin moaned, clapping a hand over his mouth, pushing the noise back in past his teeth.

_Erwin? Erwin! Thank you, God, thank you, Erwin. You’re alive. You’re alive. You’re alive my boy. Dear boy, my boy, Erwin._

His teeth. Everyone’s dead. They take his teeth out. Cut open his gums and dig them out and Goti thought he would die and the Baron is putting him up and Erwin wants to be dead like the rest of them.

 _Don’t you dare._  
She’d hit him if it wouldn’t make his mouth gush blood. She hits him anyway.  
_You need to live._

He stopped making noise. Between one breath and the next, he shushed himself, tremors passing, swallowing convulsively and then not at all. 

_Our revenge is the truth._

“Trust me,” he managed, voice raw. He didn’t know if it was a plea or a command. “I’ll tell you the next move.” He cleared his throat; Levi didn’t ask after him. No one they knew was okay. “If nothing comes from Sina, we put this matter behind us. We have an expedition to prepare for. With me gone, the troops are looking to you and Mike.”

Levi nodded, mouth tight. Erwin scrubbed his face, scratched red lines on the back of his neck. He hadn’t cried. Weeping in his sleep, Saints, he was too tired for that. 

_They’re in his mouth, his broken tooth mouth. An old dog, an old man gums all rotted. He’s dreaming of Titans, again, Titans. Titans without teeth and they roll the bodies in their boiling mouths till the tongues crush you and it’s slow, a soup of bodies. He’s a - He’s a Titan, bone jaw hanging out of his face. Erwin is starving, hasn’t eaten. His body’s shrinking in, stomach gnawing on his spine, so hungry he’s crunched over on his hands and knees, dumb mute dog - wait wait - you killed them - and he’s here, licking up their blood. You’re alive, Goti says, and hits him for wanting otherwise. Kill them. Kill them, she says. Goti Goti Goti. How many times does he bring death to her, poor bodyslinger boy, knocking on her door, the trouble he brings her, since the day he was born. He'd gotten blood on her, on her hands where she wore another man’s rings, shackle promises and she did right by him. He wants to kiss, kiss her, but he’s sewn shut, they cut his teeth out and sewed him shut to rot and the infection if an abscess forms the infection in his blood and he’ll boil up, starving in his body, eating itself up and_ Titans must be so hungry. He thinks he understands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I asked my dental hygienist about breaking people's teeth and all this stuff.
> 
> So brief explanation about the teeth if u care to know:
> 
> You'd have to break the jaw to bust out teeth. Poor oral hygiene would let some of the molars fall out easier, other side most of them probe broke off and had exposed nerves and shit. Adult molars r part of the jawbone. So Erwin is all kinds of fucked up orally. So they has to cut out the rest of the molars/nerves and they sewed his gums over. Biggest risk at that point is if he gets an infection, it'll create an abcess and could put an infection in his blood and kill him.
> 
> It didn't obvs. He suffered a lot physically. Terrible procedure/healing.


	6. lost letter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a long time, letters were charged by the sheet upon delivery to the recipient. People would write one way and then the opposite way to conserve paper use. It was a skill to decipher the penmanship. The hyperlink in the first sentence is to the image of the letter cross-posted to my tumblr.

_[I fear our letters are not reaching each other](http://stillmadaboutpetra.tumblr.com/post/148000295303/a-letter-sender-unknown-recipient-unknown); it has been five months since your words last came to me. Don’t worry my heart, there is only a little left and so much of it rests within you. I’ve changed my messenger and her route, but you’ll know this. Truthfully, I’ve been ill. Nothing of great alarm, but fevers and bouts of dizziness. It comes and goes. My body is tired with you gone. My heads been hurting. If I ache, you must be in agony. Grin and bare it; nothing is finished while we live. My husband can only do so much. He tries. I know you don’t want to read another word of him. Don’t ever forget that he’s our ally where we have none. All else are lost to us. _

  
_I won’t say anything too valuable until I hear back from you in a reasonable frame of time. Seal your letter well. I want to know that it’s traveled untouched; I won’t trust anything less than certain proof._   
  
_I’ve taken in a child. A Third. They were passed along after the massacres; no one was willing to take in anyone. Too much of the heart of us was burned out. Those that remain forget the meaning behind Horizon. They’re only a few years younger than you, perhaps I oughtn’t not call them a child, but you are barely a man to me some days. They’re bright, as brilliant as you, as a dream. A ruined little body, so many scars; they were so angry when they came to me, a perfect storm. They’re better now, getting stronger. I’m teaching them. That’s all I can do. Show them love in this miserable world and arm them to the teeth._   
_Come back to me. I want to look on your face. Has your positioned changed? Have you heard from anyone? The lines are all dry.  Come see my ward. You would be delighted._   
  
_With eternal love - Yours_


	7. up a window

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see end note for tw if u feel like u need them

Erwin Smith. Senior Lieutenant Officer. Queen of shiny boots. Notorious slut. Pain in Nile’s fucking ass. 

“I am not boosting you up a window.” Nile puts his foot down. He puts both feet down. He crosses his arms and slumps against the wall beneath a window just shy of within reaching distance on a good jump. 

“Nile,” aforementioned pain in Nile’s ass, Erwin Smith, clasps his hands together in a plea and smiles his brightest forever-crooked smile. “You know I need your help.”

It’s reflective on Nile’s character that this love sick no-good man is Nile’s best friend.

“Lift me up after you.”

“Deal,” Erwin agrees readily, rubbing his hands together. He takes Nile by the arms, spinning him around once, all conniving joy. “Take a knee, Nile. Don’t let me fall.”

“Oh really, take a knee? I thought I was supposed to hike you up by your armpits,” Nile grouses, shaking his head and kneeling. “Getting my pants dirty for this, Erwin.”

“I’ll wash them,” Erwin promises, distracted. His fat foot steps into Nile’s palm and even though he’s as big as a horse, Nile is able to propel him the foot of distance he needs to get a handhold on the ledge of the window. From there, it’s a matter of strength. Erwin scrabbles up, nearly kicking Nile in the head because he is a pain. In. the. Ass. 

“Hey!” Nile whisper shouts when its quiet for too long. Erwin pops his head over the ledge, grinning like a buffoon, before reaching down with an outstretched hand. They hold tight; Nile does his own share of kicking, getting his feet up on the side of the house, toes finding crevices in the stone, before they’re both falling ass over elbow into the big window left conspicuously wide open.

“Sshh,” Erwin says unnecessarily, putting a hand over Nile’s mouth to hush his laughter. They’re tangled together, on their asses right inside the window, the white curtain fluttering around them. Nile knocks his hand away, rolling his eyes.

“You already fell in here like a dead animal.”

Erwi huffs and shoves to his feet. Nile follows, trying to wipe the smile off his face even as he bats the dirt scuffed into the knee of his pants off. The clean white is ruined. They get out of the library and tip-toe into the room down the hall. Erwin pauses, hand slowly closing on the brass door knob, body swelled up on a deep breath and a tension as thick as a second spine. 

“Should I wait out here?” Nile asks as quiet as he can, frowning at Erwin’s back. He hates…he hates not seeing his face.

“No. She’ll have a place set for you.”

She always does, Nile thinks.

They slip in the door with nary a creak.

“Erwin. Nile,” Marie greets, soft voice wrapped in a rose lipped smile. She’s in a light, thin dress, all folds and pink bows, dark curls piled atop her head, bows there, curls a shower down the back of that bird grace neck. The breath goes out of Nile at the sight of her, his stomach dropping and heart trying to make a home in his throat. He salutes her, immediate and compulsive. He never knows what to do with Marie Anton. Erwin of course sweeps across the room, straight legs and straight shoulders, a dash of royal red and blond hair.

“Forgive me for taking so long to return to you,” Erwin begs nobly, bowing over her hand, kissing each of her fingertips. They are pink and fine, her fingers slender. Erwin holds her hand gently, almost shy, unsure. But Marie’s eyes are half-lidded at his touch; Nile knows how those calluses feel, the wide palm and even the scuff of sun dark knuckles as Erwin caresses his hand up the hairless round fat of her arm, tracing a ticklish admiration all the way to her armpit where the hair is dark and soft and powdered and Marie flinches, smacking Erwin lightly, playful and girlish.

She is sixteen in two weeks. 

“I suppose it can’t be helped since my father has threatened to have you jailed.”

“Murdered last time I heard,” Nile corrects, finding his voice. Marie has a gap between her front teeth, so behind her smile he can see the pink flick of her tongue and he wants to lick her top to bottom for it. She will be sixteen and her door will be pounded down by suitors and Erwin is standing like a giant over her, head bent and face dumb with intent and fantasy. He wants to lick her top to bottom too. Has gotten close. He had been inconsolable about the way Marie’s thighs had quivered through her stocking when he had knelt between her legs and spent an hour rubbing her calves and letting his cheek rest on her knee and simply starred up at her while the heat of his eyes had made her red and half mad with lust. He never touched more than that, hands no higher than her knee, no farther than the downy hair of her armpits. Sixteen in two weeks and Erwin looked ravenous for her. 

If her father denies him his chance to pay proper court, Erwin might just find himself dead or in jail with what he’d do. 

“My father will warm to the idea,” Marie says confidently, guiding Erwin to the settee. Nile takes the high backed chair diagonal. There’s tea, three cups, a pot with steam snaking out of the thin spout. When Marie leans forward to pour them their cups, Erwin shifts closer so she sits into the cradle of his body. He kisses the naked slope of her shoulder; Nile longs to be the dark crease between lips and skin. They lunch. 

Erwin has news.

“I’m going to be offered a Captain’s position in Mitras any day now.”

“Mitras?” Marie gasps.

“Since when,” Nile honks. It yanks at him. 

Erwin looks at him briefly, eyes level, before sliding his gaze back to Marie. “Yes. Colonel Donegal is accepting the Brigadier position there. He wants to bring a few of his own people. I’ll join him as a Captain on the track to becoming a Colonel.”

Marie is more than pleased, enthusing her pride in Erwin. Nile gets it now, why Erwin had been so confident about Marie’s father agreeing to his proposal. A lieutenant was nothing to scoff at, yes, but a Captain at twenty two is unheard of, and one requested with the security of another promotion ahead of him was enough qualification for Erwin to be a son-in-law even if he was a no-name orphan. The look of him too; a father would be glad to have grandchildren by a man who looked like Erwin Smith. 

“Does she know you’ve been a whore to get that position,” Nile asks unjustly when they are back on the streets, tea and biscuits and jam on his tongue.

“That’s an unconfirmed rumor,” Erwin says lightly. He doesn’t even have the grace to pretend to be offended. Shameless. Too mean for this world, too good at beating it. 

Nile snorts. “Sure. Captain by twenty -two because you’re just that good at your job. Mitras, really?”

“Want to come?” Erwin doesn’t rise to the jabs, just turns and walks backwards, hands laced behind his back. He’s serious. “I’ll request you in the transfer. I’m sure this whore has that much favor to bring a friend.”

“You just want me along to keep you in line. Besides, I’ll finally get noticed now that you’re hairy ass won’t be blocking the view of me.”

Erwin throws his head back and laughs. “I know you’ll miss my ass, Nile.”

Saint Sina, he would. He would. And Marie. It wasn’t like he could have them after they married, like he had them right now in the first place; but he was close.

“Sure,“ he agrees with a shrug and bless Erwin Smith for just smiling like he didn’t know Nile would follow him out to no-man’s land in the Northern Edges. “Put that mouth to good use I guess. You’d be in the brig if it wasn’t for me. Marie’s father won’t like his daughter getting hauled off all alone to another city with a crook-tooth rake like you.”

\--

Colonel Donegal doesn’t believe Erwin Smith is a cock sucking piece of fuck meat but it feels good to tell him he is. It feels good to put his boot on Erwin‘s handsome face and stomp him into the ground while he shivers and sweats with his ass raised up and Donegal‘s cock buried in him like the sheath of a sword trying to run him through. With his hands braced on the ground, trying not to slide across the wood and scrape that pretty fucking face of his, Erwin looks like he’s praying, but the only thing coming out of him is chopped up noises as he’s pounded into without regard.

When the boot lifts from his face and the cock slides out of his ass for the final time, Erwin is on his hands and knees, scrambling on the floor like a trained dog, bruising himself to get those god damn lips on Donegal’s fat dick. He’s good about it too, gasping around it because his nose is clogged from the fucking, tears lost somewhere in the back of his throat. He really is good at his job.

Donegal likes best how he doesn’t fumble. He just does. He sucks his lips around his teeth and bares down on the cock shoved in his mouth and Donegal takes him by the hair and fucks that back of his jaw, that big space that’s all gums and he can watch his cheek bulge out. Erwin can’t get his mouth open too wide, no doubt with that fucked up teeth business, but he sucks, and Donegal fucks the sewed up gums and comes on the ridges of scars tucked back in the corner of his mouth. 

“Whoever broke those teeth should have done a full job on you. Would be the best cocksucker if you were all gums.”

Erwin’s gasping at the end, swallowing with a small cough. He doesn’t dribble though. Donegal admires that about him. He steals the kerchief out of Donegal’s coat left laying on the chair and dabs his mouth even as he kneels naked at another man’s feet.

“Saint’s Ashes, you’re priceless, Erwin,” Donegal laughs, stumbling back jelly-legged and dropping into the chair. “Could be the king with those manners. Finish off for me, with some fingers in you, let me see.”

Erwin lowers himself till his back hits the desk and he’s propped up; spreads his legs and dips two fingers down to slip dirty inside, wraps his hand around his dick -- and that’s just a work of art -- starts stripping away and fingering himself, muscles of his arm bunched and the veins on the back of his hand swollen like the ones raced up his cock. Erwin gets hard start to finish, doesn’t even need a hand on him to get him to the edge, just needs Donegal fucking his brains out. 

He comes with a groan, eyes closed, head hanging down, a fall of blond hair. He likes to squeeze himself at the end, strangling the head of his dick, then ease up, smooth his hand down it, pet the lingering hardness while his two fingers rubs firm and deep. That too eases, then he’s left rubbing his sore hole, limp, and sometimes just the sight of him strung out and vulnerable, all that compact energy and earnestness stripped away, Donegal can get hard again and fuck his face really slowly, almost sweetly, and Erwin just sits there and lets him. 

"They'll love you in Mitras."

“Fuck,” Erwin finally breaks. He hums, all content, wipes his hand on that kerchief, wipes his ass on it too and flings it at Donegal who catches it out of reflex then curses a blue streak while Erwin just smirks crooked. “Better keep this between us, I can’t handle more men like you in Mitras.”

“You could handle an army with that ass,” Donegal disagrees with a wave of his hand, holding the kerchief up by thumb and forefinger like damning evidence. 

Erwin looks away, and Donegal gets worried for one second that Erwin’s taking him serious.

“Hey, now, boy, none of that melancholic business.” Donegal’s on his feet, coming over with a hand to offer up. Erwin blinks up at him, all lashes and too-blue eyes and Donegal could not go without him in Mitras. Sneakiest officer he ever met and too good for this world by half even if he was as dirty as the mud on his boots. The same dirt smudged all over the side of Erwin’s face.

“Bring Dawk with you,” Erwin says instead of taking the comfort though he does take the hand, letting Donegal brace his weight. He’s taller than Donegal. Used to be smaller all over, lean when he was nineteen and brand spanking new. Filled out some, but it’s obvious he’ll just get bigger across the shoulders. Still got some boy left in his body, though his face is as harsh as any old vet’s.

“You mean let you bring your friend? Make sure he has a cushy job too?” 

“Do I have to say please?” 

“Not this time.” He pats Erwin on the chest, give his red nipples a twist just to hear the grunt of breath from him. “I’ll add him to my transfer request. Did you tell the Anton girl about the job?”

There he smiles. “Yes. I’m more worried about telling her father, truth be told.”

“I’ll vouch for you, Erwin; you’re too embarrassing about her. I need to see you married proper and settled or you’ll be a disgrace to the force.” Donegal holds up Erwin’s shirt, shaking it out and helping him into it. They don’t kiss. It isn’t like that. 

“You’re very generous, Colonel,” Erwin murmurs, head ducked as he pokes his arms through the shirt, quickly filling it up like water in a bucket. Still growing. He’s a flood. 

\--

Zackely stared Commander Erwin Smith down for a long minute. 

“This is ridiculous,” Fiskus shouted, hands slapped on the table, half out of his seat.

Erwin pulled a chair out for Hanji to his immediate right. 

“You brought your…” Zackely rubbed his at his brow, massaging a growing headache that bloomed with each beat of his heart behind his eyes. 

“Tactician and Research Chief, Hanji Zoe,” Erwin introduced with a flourish.

“Present and accounted for, thank you, Commander.” Hanji sat down primly, fingers laced and set out in a neat cuff before them on the table.

“First a criminal and now a Titan-obsessed Third?” 

Erwin stood very straight, a hand on Hanji’s shoulder. “Everyone in this room is aware that The Horizon had an uncommonly high number of Third members relative to the popluation; I need not consult the tactical genius beside me to know that the input of an individual who would be approached by or interested in The Horizon, speaking generally of a demographic, would be a welcome source of insight on addressing this threat.”

“No, it’s obvious why you brought Hanji,” Nile spoke up, silencing the protest building in Fiskus. The Commander and LC shared a look. Erwin nodded his head at Nile, taking a seat.

“Welcome, Hanji,” Zackley greeted. “Your insight is more than appreciated.”

“Great,” Hanji chirped, They adjusted their glasses and leaned forward, breaking their neat posture for an eager lunge. “Because we’re going to infiltrate The Horizon.”

Zackely, Fiskus and Pixis looked at them in begrudged interest; Nile and Erwin watch each other watch each other. 

\--

“Again! Again!!”

“Mike,” Levi shook his head, perched up in a tree beside him. “Let them take a piss. It’s been all day and we’ve stuffed them with water.”

Mike propped his hands on his hips, staring out as his and Levi’s squads practiced starts, drops and detachments with low pressure air tanks. “We’re practicing extreme conditions, Levi. Everyone’s gotta piss their pants someday. Let’s get it out of the way.”

“You’re a sick fuck,” Levi laughed, putting a hand over his face and cracking up. “Erwin left you in charge. Sina’s tits. Just don’t make them shit themselves. That won’t come out of the pants.”

Mike shoved him out of the tree; Levi soared off, a hiss of air, the hard thunk of hooks in trees. He was across the training ground and to his squad in a split second, nothing of the fooling around left in his posture. He crouched with his exhausted squad mates, a blur checking their gear, checking their cohesion.

“Sir!” Stine waved at him from a nearby branch. “Permission to take a piss, sir.”

Mike scratched at the back of his head. “Go tell the whole squad they can break. LEVI! BREAK!”

There was a wave from across the yard and then the look of birds taking off and landing below. Those cans wouldn’t get them back to the training camp, shouldn’t be wasted. Leftover tanks salvaged from expeditions; can’t make them like that. If they weren’t practicing with the gear picked off their dead comrades, trying to learn how to live a little longer with shit outlooks, maybe this would be a good day. But then again, almost a good day was a good day. 

He made his way to each two-squad posting. He couldn’t help himself from stopping much longer where Chana had her team running drills with Missy’s. 

Missy zipped her way to him. “Lieutenant Commander.” She didn’t touch him. She knew better. They weren’t like that. 

“How are the new arrangements?” he tipped his head to the two new people in her squad.

“Negotiating. Tara’s now the fastest one, it’s throwing Jonas off a little when she gets to the Titan first.”

“Let her lead strike, if that’s the case.”

“I was planning to.” She eyed him, arms crossed. Mike backed away from the subtle challenge. He didn’t need to micromanage. He wasn’t even the Commander -- but maybe that’s what he was for. The details. Erwin had enough on his plate. But Miss knew her team. She had lived long enough to be trusted to know what was best for her squad. 

Mike cupped his hands around his mouth. “Break! Head to camp!”

Chana, her squad, and the rest of Missy’s squad fell together on the ground, appearing like worms after the rain. It took Mike too long to find Nanaba; he caught himself racing to find that mop of curls. But Nana had put his hair up, a bun that was struggling to keep itself together.

Nana was looking up at the tree, at him, neck craned back. He got left behind, looking so long, nothing but footprints surrounding him. Mike fell down in an ease of wires beside him. 

“How does the new squad suit you?” 

He could smell the sweat rolling off Nana, see it running down their temple, catch and gather on the hair of their lip. He would taste like salt to kiss. 

“Very well, sir, thank you.” Nanaba doesn’t look at him now, busy flapping their collar to get some air on their chest and neck. The gear holds the fabric tight; sweat crawls stick and plenty down Mike’s back. Narrow; Nana is narrow; their collarbones stand tight at their skin, round under their throat. 

“Good.” Mike turns away, heel of his boot squealing against wet grass. 

“I can handle myself.”

He stops. Nana has his arms straight down at his sides, hands clenched into fists. 

“I expect nothing less from a Survey Corp soldier,” Mike told him. “I’m not trying to prove that otherwise. Come on, now, Cadet, I want to eat too.” He didn’t give Nana room to terry, struck off at a quick pace. The disobedience in Nana didn’t last, and soon he was at Mike’s side, silent and stony but following. 

Supper is simple but a welcome reprieve. Levi had found a decent log, stripped of wood, sat down with his boots off and feet stretched out in the grass. His bare toes were all but lost in the long green but the gear stood out starkly around the white wraps that protect his skin from being chaffed off entirely. He was hunched over a letter, shoulders curled; Mike could see his lips moving as he tried to sound out the words. It looked like a lot of words.

“Got a letter?” Mike queried, sitting down beside him with an oomph. 

Levi snapped straight, hiding the paper to his chest. “What‘s it to you,” he snipped.

Mike threw up his hands, let them fall in a clatter against his thighs. “Forgive me.” Three Walls, people were testy today. “Thought you couldn’t read?”

Levi folded the paper into a small square and tucked it into a pocket inside his jacket. “I can read some things. It just takes me a long ass time. Especially when the person decides to go and write in that loopy fancy lettering.”

Mike kicked his boots off. The grass was good on his hot feet. “So it’s from Erwin.”

Levi rolled his eyes but his silence is confirmation.

 

_Levi,_  
_I know I worry you being gone without you, but you guard me always. Last night you saw me weak. I know you would never speak of it to anyone, but this problem must not be shared. My anxieties with this must not be known. The Corp is my priority. I won’t take actions to jeopardize its future or the future of Humanity. I promised you that the future was out there, that we will discover the Truth or die trying. Don’t trouble yourself with The Horizon, with how I am shaken by it. Do not. If you cannot put away this problem, throw this letter in my face and have at me when I return. But if you understand the necessity of patience, burn this, continue your devotion to me and Humanity. I will be back in two weeks. Help Mike._

_I am yours. Eternally and gratefully._

 

\--

The meeting went well, all things considered. Hanji proposed that following the vetting by each branch of the military, they establish a candidate for conversion who will “tempt the treasonous bastards to out themselves.”

But now Erwin has taken Hanji back to the archives, past the same tired clerk who doesn’t bring them tea, though he does offer. They wouldn’t be here long.

“What are we doing?” Hanji asked but they didn’t need an answer; immediately the started going through stacks of paper, muttering to themselves. “What is all this shit? Half of it isn’t Horizon material; that’s obvious.”

“A lot of people used the name but weren’t real members. There was only maybe forty people that were the real Horizon. But people like to pretend they were apart of something bigger. I’m sure imposters and fringe figures are why the meeting rooms were discovered and the massacres happened.” Erwin had tried and failed to make peace with the idea of carelessness being the cause of so much death. 

“And you were one of them? A real member?”

“Something like that. I was young. Younger.”

“Goti took you in, didn’t she?” Hanji dropped the papers in their hand back into a box, far more interested in Erwin. Her name was enough to make Erwin flinch as it came out of Hanji’s mouth. “Like she did for me.”

Erwin held Hanji’s eyes and fished the letter out of his pocket, passing it over. Hanji took it with a frown, at first puzzled, then gradually turning weak, falling away. They swallowed audibly, eyes misting. “Oh, Goti. A Third. That’s me.” They traced the words like they were fragile, perishing by the second. 

“She never mentioned me?” Erwin couldn’t help but ask. The slow shake of Hanji’s head didn’t surprise him.

“This,” Hanji’s brows came together again as they read and reread the letter. “Was it addressed to you?” They looked down at the letter again. “It looks.” They stopped.

“Like my writing. Yes, I’m aware. It sent Levi into a fit of suspicion.” 

Hanji shrugged. “Mine isn’t too far off either, now that I think about it. I thought it was a regional style.”

“She loved to teach,” Erwin said stiffly, voice stray of emotions. Hanji couldn’t find anything on his remote face. Erwin took the letter back and replaced it in the same stack it’d come out of, roughly approximated, of course. Levi had found it in a mess anyway. 

“So Levi thinks you’re in the Horizon?” Hanji followed up, alert once more. Both knew it wasn’t the time to reminisce or get caught up in the past. Erwin had enough of the past of late, but he knew it was not done biting at his heels. 

“Something akin to that. I’ve left him in the dark; I don’t particularly want to deal with any of this nor do I want him dragged into this mess with his record. We have an expedition in a month. None of us can afford distractions.”

 

Erwin opened the door to his room at the inn to see his father’s journal resting on his pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> use of the word whore, sex with an authority figure in exchange for power, 16 is legal age in snk. marie is almost 16 and is being vaguely sexualized. involved in a romantic relationship with 22yo erwin. 
> 
> this chapter is wild. im trying to....plot...really appreciate feedback as im trying a New Thing...we all just care about erwin and levi schmoozing tho. 
> 
> the first two sections are Of The Past obvs


	8. evil angel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit i wrote this and edited this d'runk here u go not a lot of plot mostly erwin getting nookie as promised on my blog
> 
> the song levi sings is "evil angel" by rufus wainwright go listen to it

Erwin’s stone-faced reticence had deterred Hanji from discussing the new tie between them: Goti. At least for the first few nights out of Sina. When towns gave way to fields, and only the distant smoke-tails drifting from farmers and small villages marked their location, Hanji laid their sleeping pack beside Erwin, feet stretched towards their modest fire. They could take a harder pace and stay at homes, at inns, but neither begrudged the land beneath their backs and the stars strung above their heads. It was close to freedom, alone in the night like that.

“So,” Hanji prompted, nudging Erwin as he tried to fall asleep.

He stirred begrudgingly. Even the horses were sound asleep. “Yes, Hanji?” He could see the flash-spark gleam of their smile in the low firelight. 

“Tell me about her.”

Erwin squeezed his eyes shut.

“Come on, Erwin,” Hanji pleaded, laying a hand on his arm, a guess through the thick saddle blanket. He could feel the tug of their insistence. “You’re older. You must remember her better.”

“She was the most beautiful woman I’ll ever know.”

Hanji withdrew their touch and rolled over, curling up into a small shape in the dark. Erwin didn’t budge, stretched out under his blanket, cold and naked feeling, lungs shivering behind his ribs with old, blue-sad aches.

\--

The sun had gone from the sky before Erwin and Hanji returned. That they’d tarried long enough to ensure this, letting their horses take a comfortable pace, did not need to be shared. The journal hidden in the base of Erwin’s pack, thumbed through, smelled, checked over to see not a page torn, not a word added, did nothing to hurry Erwin’s pace back to the Corp’s base. He had it back; that’s all that mattered; one step at a time.

They put away their own horses, lighting lamps by the stables, boots crunching hay. When the flame went on, the horses huffed from their stalls, rows and rows of huge dark heads peering over their small doors. Erwin passed his hand over their muzzles as he went to the tack room to fetch a brush while Hanji pumped water to wash their mounts down.

A cadet greeted them after a few minutes, asking if the Commander wanted the Lieutenant Commander fetched; no, let him sleep; you as well, cadet, thank you; dismissed. 

Commander. The halls were empty. Commander. No one crept in the dark. Erwin walked Hanji to their door. They chattered almost happily about the designs for the spears; Zackely had approved the budget and Hanji wanted to compare some ideas with Moblit that they’d sketched out in the downtime of this trip. 

“Take your time; I can’t get you a Titan on my first mission,” Erwin reminded them gently. He had a headache, a beat behind his teeth, behind his eyes. 

“It could be your last mission,” Hanji said blithely, mouth thin with a lack of humor. Erwin could only grunt. That was true enough. 

“One thing at a time, Hanji.” He shook his head, stopped at their door. “Will you--” he paused, mouth closing uselessly. Hanji broke from their serious reverie and patted his arm, opening the door behind them with a creak of noise. They disappeared into the room for a second, reappearing just as quickly.

“Levi isn’t in bed.”

Erwin nodded, once, curt. “Goodnight, Hanji.” 

They blew out an amused laugh, shaking their head, shutting the door. “Night, Commander.”

They looked so sure of Erwin then, as they closed the door. Sure of his actions and sure that Erwin was headed to a bed warmed by a man ready to die for Erwin the same way men are ready to sleep after a long day. Erwin wished he could be as sure as he turned away, feeling his ways down the dark corridors. 

Shadis had resented him for Levi. Shadis could not say a word about the slayer on the field, the force of Nature brought to them in the form of man, but Saints and Walls, Shadis had hated Levi when the blood stopped raining from broken bodies and orders became common talk over the table. It had taken well over a year for Levi to stop slinking about like a cat waiting to be kicked away even as the farmer begged for it to kill the rats. 

Erwin stopped and put a hand over his face, sighing. No, no. What a poor metaphor. So bad, he wanted to tell Levi to see the bland look of disdain cross his face, to have him shove at Erwin ineffectually in play, in mockery, to be volleyed back a far better one on Erwin’s character. A dog, perhaps. Or darker; a wolf. A Northern Hill wolf, some twisted tale. Look at you, running towards the moon, running yourself over a cliff and dying in a howl. Poor wolf man. Leading his whole pack over a cliff. Body-slinging boy. Had Erwin the teeth for such ferociousness? 

He touched his jaw, rubbing a phantom ache. Yes. Yes. He knew he did. 

At his door, he held his breath, spine straight, shoulders hunched and head low. He swallowed as he touched the knob. Would there be a warm bed? Would there be a man ready to die for him?

The room was empty. 

The roof. The window was shut. The moon lay an accusation across his bed; empty white light; the sheets were tucked tight. Mike. He might be with Mike, just next door. He’d done that once, slept there. Erwin had no right to question either men for sharing each other’s company when Erwin selfishly took them both, kept them both, offered them again and again to death -- but they had promised, they had sworn.

The heat of the room struck him. Erwin shrugged out of his coat, expecting a chill, but the dirty clothes came off and the room was warm. His mind was leaving him; the stove was lit, dark wood glowing, pine in the air, sappy and sweet. Like kisses, licorice kisses. 

Humming. Erwin closed his eyes and shut the door. The window was sealed, the bed was made, and Mike was alone in bed because Levi sang from the washroom. Now he heard it. A throaty voice, misshapen with wear, with shouts that rode a voice raw and weary; but it hummed through the air, words round, slurring together with the Underground roll of rhythm. 

“Evil angel when you’re faced with Hatred’s daggers in my honor Your no match no scratching hearts that no longer bleed.“ 

With a cloth bound around his hand, Levi lifted a bucket of water from a second stove, smaller, an earthen pot of smoking wood, a funnel casting the smoke outside, a small pipe of gray in the nighttime sky; he poured hot water over into the claw foot tub. It was plenty full, steaming. Erwin hadn’t a moment to indulge in that luxury yet. Levi’s hair was back, tucked into a headscarf; feet bare, legs bare. Dark hair on his toes like scuff marks. Black curls a tripping underbrush swarmed up his thighs. He was in Erwin’s sleep shirt, the too-big sleeves cuffed ten times over to sit above his elbows. The muscle of his forearm flexed, tendon tight at his wrists.

“Oh Evil ange-e-e-el tear dow-own the monume-eh-eh-eh-ents.“ Dark eyes landed on Erwin, dragging him into the washroom. Levi settled the bucket with a small clatter and closed the space between him and Erwin, fingers immediate and deft at his bolo tie, sliding it loose. Erwin ducked his head for Levi to rid him of the thing, cast aside like a cheap bauble. “Evil Angel bury the coat of arms and rebuild ofr me these memories. Fo-orr to see -ee-ee my de-eh-epth of sor-row.”

“Beautiful,” Erwin gushed in one breath, lifting a timid hand to caress Levi’s cheek. "No letter in my face?"

"Burned it." Levi rest his cheek in Erwin’s palm; perhaps a cat after all. Seeing the willingness cast over Levi’s face, Erwin surged forward, drawing him up ready onto his toes to kiss; he kissed him. This Erwin had no doubts about. Levi arched, ready, curving at the slightest touch of Erwin’s hand. His spine become a sinew string, plucked and drawn; his mouth a well; Erwin thirsted. 

“God,” Levi gasped after, when given a moment to breathe. He played with the soft hairs at the base of Erwin’s skull, the ones that escaped any attempt at style and grew and grew. “Missed me, hmm?”

At a loss for words, Erwin kissed him again; an intake of breath; he swallowed over lips and bit at gasps. He followed the moan in Levi’s throat down, holding him close, kissing his neck. Erwin found that strung tendon, licked below at a little shadow and felt Levi buckle in his arms, light as a feather because Erwin wanted him so bad.

“Let me have you,” he asked.

“The water’s hot,” Levi replied, squirming against him, dick hard, a hot line drawn between their bodies. Erwin released him, fire-eyed. 

“And you as well,” he growled, feeling down Levi’s body; so alive; writhing at the slightest touch. He took no other. Erwin was a fool. Mike would never, could never -- Levi wanted only him. This man -- blood rushed to and fro -- head and cock -- Erwin kissed him again and again, dragging Levi closer, onto his thigh that slipped between his legs for Levi to mount and grind like he was helpless; Erwin made him a different creature. The blood of him was good. Alive. Erwin felt alive as the night could not make him otherwise.

“A bath!” Levi panted; he rode Erwin’s thigh. It was next to nothing to force his hips. He put a hand over Erwin’s lips, shoving him away and giving up to a breathy laugh, eyes crinkled, grin impossible to resist; Erwin was smiling under Levi’s palm. “You smell like a horse’s ass.”

So Erwin kissed his life line and acquiesced. He rinsed hastily with the cold water in a small wooden tub before jackrabbitting into the bath prepared before him.

Hot water rose with him, almost to his knees, though the pink caps jutted up like small mountains; water slicked hair flat against his body; except his chest; except the bush between his legs; drifting tendrils; Levi touched him eagerly, readily. A cup poured water over his head and sure fingers combed his hair back, whicked water from his brow.

“News from Sina?” Levi asked. Peppermint. Bubbles popped in his hair.

“None,” Erwin sighed, damp over his lips. Levi massaged his temples. “Hanji will continue designs for the spears to capture a titan.”

“We’re still doing that?” Blunt nails down Erwin’s scalp, carving the dome.

“Yes. It’s imperative. I will…I will give Hanji almost anything.” He shut his eyes, leaning against the ceramic tub. Water sloched gently. His muscles relaxed, from toes to shoulder, loosening in the hot water that turned his skin pink. And Levi’s fingers, his hands, a rag scrubbing away.

“And the Horizon?” He asked hesitantly, like he couldn't help himself. 

Erwin didn’t falter nor did he blame Levi. “Zackely and Fiskus supplied rough plan for information gathering; Hanji and I will select a few members of the Corp as decoys and double agents. We’ll have a meeting after the first mission. Enough with that, I'm done with business tonight.” He sank lower into the water, letting his lying lips fall below the line. Levi grunted; Erwin was never through with business but it was nice to pretend. At his wordless prompt, Erwin lifted his foot above the water and gave it over to Levi’s washing. Steam clutched Erwin’s eyelashes and threatened to cloud his vision, but nothing could stop him from the sight of Levi’s dutiful face as he washed between Erwin’s toes, ran his rag over the sad arch of a weary soldier’s foot. Levi’s thumb rubbed up the sole of Erwin’s foot and Erwin ran his own hand down his stomach to grip his hardening cock where it floated high in the water. 

“Get in here,” he order, drawing away from Levi only to sit up straighter in the bath, water licking at the rim of the tub. Levi looked lazy, sitting back on his stool.

“You have no manners,” he chided.

Erwin propped an elbow on the edge of the bathtub, cheek in hand, looking him over as he stroked his cock hard. “I don’t care right now. Strip off and join me.”

No fool could miss the black all over Levi’s eyes, the jump of his cock; hard at the sight of Erwin; hard just to touch him. He reached across his body and drew the shirt over his head without flourish or delay, flinging it aside and practically diving into the tub to join Erwin; body hot, solid in the swimming soap-milk water. 

“Horny fucker,” Levi grinned, sliding over his body. Yes, yes, yes. The weight of him, the rigid cock, that greeted Erwin’s hand. Erwin praised the point of his chin and his collarbone, the heavy-muscled shoulder. He stroked the hind and smoothed the pink hole that knew only him -- would know only him. 

“Sina whores have nothing on you,” Erwin praised, feeling Levi where he softened, where he fluttered and stressed and gave over. He received the bites and kisses in turn, content; so content; a book of forbidden words hidden in his room and this man splitting open for him. What ache? What ache? He was a mouth of fang and poison and promise. “Suck me.”

With heady eyes, Erwin watched Levi as he darted his eyes down, considered, and nodded. As Levi remembered the taste of him and weight of him; he barely had to ask; Levi loved this; he swallowed so well and licked so thoroughly. This was far easier than Erwin shoving it up his ass; but tonight, Erwin would have both. He could feel it. 

Water slopped over the tub, hitting the floor in gulps of noise. Levi drowned himself on Erwin, crunched to swallow the cock given to him, the one that made him hard. Erwin rested a hand on his head, ink-spill hair running away from his fingers. He held down; Levi could not swallow here. Erwin sat buried in his flinching throat, thinking: I could drown him here; but Levi rose with a gasp, a dark look; made marks on Erwin’s skin, sucking like the veins will open into a wellspring and make him new. 

“Are you talking tonight?” Erwin asked, unnecessary, between the filthy tongue-sucking Levi gave him. No. the answer was no. Levi took his time instead, tasting the clean on Erwin, rolling his tongue against his pulse point, digging teeth to sweet spots and drawing lovers bites forward like confessions. They were a mess together, threats on red lips, spills on the floor and groans into the night. This was luxury. This was promise. Erwin had at Levi, fucking him once and again, fucking him til his muscles ache; he wanted to eat him. This was starving: looking at thigh and rib and spring-red lips and knowing only greed.


	9. stomaching

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been awhile. I'm disgustingly busy writing a book. Here's Nanaba being cute as fuck. I missed this. xoxo.

Instead of drills, the day passed checking gear and taking care of the horses. The cold spring air stamped down the sour smell of horse stalls: damp hay and piss and feces. Nanaba and Stine scraped out the bad hay, replenished it, working stall by stall while the horses were set to graze on frost-crisp fields. They began their chore making flat comments on the smell, the nipping breeze, the crusty clods of shit, but too quickly a silence fell through the stalls marked only by the stiff scrape of metal on hard-packed dirt. 

We could die tomorrow. We are likely to, Nanaba thought to himself. He raked the metal tongs though the hay. These horses will be trampled. We will be swallowed. He cut the twine on a bale and threw it over the stall wall.

“I swear if mucking is the last thing I ever do, I’ll be pissed as all hell,” Nanaba groused aloud, sweat peppering his hairline despite the temperature.

“Buy yourself something nice when we’re done, how bout, that’ll do you better,” Stine replied from down the ways. “Me, I’m gonna go into town and get a hot bath, and a mince meat pie.”

And though the surrounding smell stifled the memory scent of mince meat, Nanaba moaned appreciatively. “Now there’s an idea. Mince meat. Walls, that’s worth riding home.” 

The noise from Stine’s work stopped. Nanaba heard him drive the rake into the grind, heard the tongue skip on a stone. “A pie? That’s all you need.”

Nanaba snorted. “yeah, a good pie. Buttery and spicey and stuffed with apples and raisins and beef.” They stepped out of the stall and wagged a hand at Stine, full on the very thought of mince meat. “You said it yourself.”

Stine, a stark figure of pale skin and vibrant orange hair, shook his head. His drab work clothes sucked the color and life from him, all blood under the skin washed out by his hair and the striking pattern of freckles covering most of his face. Nanaba always liked that about him, how easy he was to find in the crowd, on the field. One’s eyes shot right to him. Maybe the Lieutenant Commander liked that too, how easy it would be to keep Stine in place. “I said I’d treat myself tonight. You’ll be too dead tomorrow to eat it after.”

The statistics were too high for the jest to carry through: the words left an ominous prediction. They carried over to Nanaba like a curse; made his shoulders hunch up protectively, his spine suddenly aching where it held his body upright. 

“I won’t,” he defended, repulsed, skin hot with the thought. But now it was impossible to ignore. Stine ducked his head, turned away, apologetic, but the damage was done. Nanaba twisted his hands around the wooden handle, feeling the grit of wood, the places where the wood had gotten soaked by rain and started to splinter as it dried. 

The barracks buzzed with trepidation. Bodies bowed over gear, fingers fidgeting at triggers, winding and unwinding wire, greasing small gray turnbolts. Even the most diligent of soldiers, be they cadets or officers, lagged in and out of focus. Only the horses moved in their yards without tripping over themselves; they ducked their heads and grazed, they flicked their ears, snickered, went into fits chasing each other. Nanaba hovered along the fence line, walking beside their own mount. A sleek bay named Licorice, just the slightest bit goose-rumped. She was a good girl, a bit older. 

Nanaba footed a boot onto the wooden slat of the fence and lifted himself half over, wiggling his fingers in a beckon at Licorice. The chestnut eye rolled to her little soldier master.

“If I go get a pie, guess I oughtta get you an apple, huh,” Nanaba said. Licorice swung her head over to snort steamy and wet into Nanaba’s empty palm. “That’s a yes, huh?”

An outfitted soldier split from a blotch of gray shapes to come into detail with each step Nanaba’s way. Chana. The squad leader raised a preemptive hand to stop Nanaba’s ready salute, instead smiling with only a hint of grimness tucked into the corner of a sad mouth.

“Communing with your mount isn’t a bad way to spend the day,” Chana supplied, taking up a similar position against the fence, letting her weight drag her hips against the wood; the uppermost slat wedged against her stomach as was Nanaba’s. “But seeing as you’re done mucking, saddle her up. We’ll go for a light ride with the rest of the squad, get the horses in mind for a formation.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Nanaba bobbed his head, hopping down with a crunch of grass. Licorice canted her head, watching with a glossy, speculative eye. When Nanaba took a step, the horse followed, ambling, behind rolling steady. They hadn’t been together long, but the trained loyalty humbled Nanaba. Would Licorice know if he died? If the horse in the stall to the left died, the black gelding? 

“Horse like that’ll get you home,” Chana called lightly, watching her young squad member trail a hand over the fence to brush up against the sleek chest of his horse.

“Promised her some apples,” Nanaba smiled, quite sure that he’d die. 

Chana chuckled, shaking her head. The severe ponytail she wore whipped about. “She’ll hold you to it.” 

She stuck two fingers tasting like black oil into her mouth and whistled shrilly, an up-and-down four note tune. Across the field, out from a small clutch of trees came her own horse. Chana held a withered apple slice in her palm, ready, before the pound of hooves had stopped.  
\--  
The first pie had been heaven. Buttery crust gave way to the white slice of teeth; gushed with salted ground beef, a flood of spices and soft tangy fruit. The oil that dared sneak down Nanaba’s fingers, gather in the creases of his skin, he licked away without shame, there standing with his back against the building. He’d been hungry, that’d been his first mistake. He should have taken the edge off so he could savor this more. But he’d been so hungry. So he bought another, and ate that too, nibbling this time, going slowly. He chipped away at the fluted crust. When the juices came, he sucked them out, held the warm slush, ground the raisins and the skin of apples between his molars. He made it last, left himself thirsty and listing back to the barracks spoiled and tired.

In brown paper, folded and crinkling in his pocket, sat a third cooled pie, half-moon, fat. Nanaba fingered it the whole walk home, hand folded around the shape, deep in the slouched pocket of his wool cloak. Tomorrow. He’d eat it tomorrow, at night, when his blood couldn’t stop shaking its way through his veins. When he was alive, and hungry, he’d eat it. He knew how the crust would fall apart, the butter fat settled, the underside glossy with the sweat of the insides. He’d eat it tomorrow when he came home alive, and he’d feed Licorice apples.

That’s how he ends up in front of the Lieutenant Commander’s door, breathing rapid and shallow from his ajar mouth. He licked the taste from his lips, licked them shiny, licked them wet again, till the taste was gone, in the back of his throat, all in his head. He could buy a new one tomorrow. A fresh one, piping hot. If not tomorrow, the next day, right when the shop opened. Maybe Stine would go with him, the two of them. They’d bring back a whole box for their squads, Chana and Mike pleased with the comraderie, proud. 

The bed was thumping against the wall from inside the room. 

It knocked its way through Nanaba’s dim hysterics, creaking and aching around his skull. Once he hears it, he snaps his mouth shut, stunned, floor cut out from beneath him. The bed is pounding with pleasure. A woman shouts from inside, laughing with another laugher, a man’s laughter. The barracks aren’t quiet, not by a long shot, noise shuffling through the halls, rooms still awake and frantic with fear. 

And the Lieutenant Commander was having delightful, giggly sex. 

He’d gone and eaten pie, and the Lieutenant Commander was fucking a woman. He was naked and sweating and sliding his body against a woman, falling apart inside her – and Nanaba carried a pie home, head full of nonsense, sure to die tomorrow.A spike of unpredicted jealous drove straight from Nanaba’s green heart to his stomach. As soon as that blow landed, Nanaba recoiled, blinking at the door in baffled outrage before shaking his head sternly at himself. 

Apparently, he should be quicker on his feet and more keen of his feelings, not linger so long at the place of dumbfoundedness. The sounds of sex resumed, pierced with not a shrill cry but a deep groan and bitten-off curse and Nanaba at this point was a bloodrush, ears burning, driven by a strange urge to throw open the door, to climb into that bed and put his hands on the mountainous shoulders of the Lieutenant Commander and press him down and –

“Nana?”

Mike stood out of arms reach. Curiosity sat hidden along his brow, shrouded by an overhang of hair, but as Nanaba stared, wide-eyed and pink, and the noise from Mike’s bedroom continued to drift out to them both, Mike’s face grew amused. 

“Were you seeking me?” And even though the noise should be distracting, should be far more interesting, Mike’s green eyes rested heavy and intent on Nanaba.

“Someone’s fucking in your room,” he blurted. He very nearly squeezed his fingers through the mince meat pie in distress at his own stupid-minded tongue. 

Mike laughed, low and huffy. He scraped a hand through his bangs, scrubbed at the back of his head. “Mmmm, Milo’s new roommate snores unbearable and he feels too guilty to wake a man who sleeps so soundly. I’m letting him take my bed.”

It wasn’t sensitive information, but it wasn’t, maybe, appropriate to speak of an officer that way to a cadet. Nanaba wasn’t sure, and for a moment squinted, trying to pull to mind the regs. Mike took a step closer, cupping a hand about his ear to the door. After a beat, he nodded, satisfied by the proceedings, and took Nanaba by the shoulder to usher him out of the officer’s hall without another word.

“Nothing to mind,” he said softly. When he wasn’t bellowing orders and making everyone squeeze their thighs together to stave off pissing themselves, he was nothing but an easy voice, wide gentle hands and even wider shoulders. Nanaba let his weight push back against Mike’s guiding hand just to feel how it pressed against him, spanned the slender bone of his shoulder blade. 

Calloused fingers drag over a nestling of baby hairs at the base of Nanaba’s skull before Mike’s touch disappears, leaving a cool ghost of affection. 

Nanaba sighed, lips drying out with the breath. From his pocket he withdrew the wrapped pie, held it like he would an apple for Licorice, arm stiff, forcing Mike to back away. His eyebrows disappeared into his fringe. “I’ll probably die tomorrow, so I overindulged.” Nanaba looked up, lips gathered in a tired pout. “Eat it. It’s mince meat.”

“Don’t count on death or it’ll get you,” Mike chastised, but he reached out and took the package, perplexed throughout the gesture. “But,” he hummed, untying the string and unfolding the paper there in his palm, “I do love mince meat pie. Thank you.”

Nanaba sniffed, looking away as Mike took a gargantuan bite, cleaving the poor pastry in half. He looked back at the appreciate hum; maybe he should have suggest Mike warm it. Too late. “You’re not even savoring it,” Nanaba tsked. 

Mike only smiled, rolling one shoulder in a shrug. “I’m hungry.” But he ate the rest more slowly, made a show of licking his fingers clean. How could he tease on a night like this? When he’d finished, and Nanaba had said nothing else, Mike brushed his hands together to rid them of the last crumbs.

“Was that all, Nana?” he asked meaningfully. 

“Yes,” Nanaba lied. The night was cold but it had nothing on a blizzard, on fever sweat and a jagged bed of hay; on Mike’s body dizzy against his own and Captain Levi saving a farmhouse from bloodshed. “I didn’t mean to disturb you or…squad leader Milo. Goodnight, sir,” he said hastily, tapping a salute and holding it until Mike tapped a brief one in dismissal.

“Sleep, Nana,” were the quiet words following him.

\--

The town poured from doorways for the first mission under the new name of Erwin Smith. Children darted amongst the horses, well-wishes mosquito bites itching the skin of the rows of soldiers sure to die; the soldiers shifted in their saddles. Commander Smith rode his horse between the ranks, looking each soldier in the eye, nodding to them: a comforting word to the shaking leaves he’d recruited: praise for his old friends: a question for a squad leader. Mike followed suit: a thank you: a joke only he could pull off: a hand on Nana’s shoulder: he and Milo ribbed each other, pulling each other close, tension shaking out of them. 

Nanaba, for the life of him, couldn’t take his eyes off the high tight ponytail swinging from peak of Squad Leader Chana’s head. 

The long-range formation worked brilliantly. The dramatic red lines coming up from the right guard lead the bulk of the Corp away from the danger. It called the Lieutenant Commander’s range team back to the center for support. And when Chana lead her squad, the nearest one, over the hill, it gave them a chance to steel themselves before they crested the hill, came barreling down, rolling their horses’ hooves over the scattered remains of Milo’s squad.

“Oh god!” Someone screamed as the hooves flung up mud and guts. Marli’s horse collided with the half-crushed body of someone else’s mount and Marli was thrown, rolling through a blackened swamp. 

The world burst into noise and colour. Chana came to her feet in the stirrups, her team following the motion; all of them took off like the wind herself flew through them. Nanaba’s heart lodge in his throat and never left, a choking thickness behind every swallow. The fray was blinding; the mammoth size of Titans filled all edges of vision: if they weren’t before you, they loomed behind, quickening: the blood in your veins couldn’t beat fast enough to keep you alive ahead of their terrible slavering mouths. 

Green smoke turned the Corp away, but for them, they were in it; they had to kill these off or die trying; it’d be a chase otherwise; Titans clambering at the heel of hooves; maybe all the way to the walls.

“Nanaba!” 

Nanaba twisted in his saddle, body jarred; Marli shouted from a pathetic crouch behind the felled and crying horses. Chana and the rest zipped around the heads of Titans, two terribly tall, making the Corp soldiers turn into small birds in the effort to cut the necks. Nanaba draped himself against Licorice’s neck, sweaty palms clutching reins and mane alike. They cut around, a wide circle to double back.

A third Titan, this one much smaller, crawling like a toddler, scuttled in the same direction. Its oversized head matched the bloated, distended belly nearly dragging along the ground, smeared with filth. It pawed at the ground, cocking its head side to side like a bird to accommodate a set of bugged eyes. 

“Marli!”

The Titan lifted the horse up, curiosity short-lived; it threw the still kicking, bridled creature aside; a dark shape to bounce and roll and die. 

“Fuck.”

The Titan pressed its fat cheek to the ground next to a small, shuddering Marli, and stared. Nanaba was close enough to see how the stench and stir of its breath blew Marli’s hair. Its eye had filth on it too, staring. Mud and blood didn’t both its glazed look, but the hot, smoking black flare Nanaba shot into it’s eye, watched punch through the clear milky surface, did. The thing gave a eerily infant-like cry, rolling onto its back. Nanaba barely stayed in their saddle as they swung by, dislocating Marli’s shoulder in the speed of lifting her up, but Marli barely cried out, busy scrabbling onto the back of Nanaba’s mount. They were sobbing, breathless, grasping at Nanaba in pale relief. She was only a year older than Nanaba.

Chana came down like a hawk, slashing the Titan through its bloated belly, releasing a belch of steam, of bright gem-like sludge that swam with the melted forms of soldiers. Nothing else. An empty sac, like afterbirth, dark but empty. Nothing. No guts, no intestines. Not even blood, not really. Yellow bile, foam, but the creature might as well have been hollow except for its boiling insides, filled only with the dead, with people more fit and animal, more honest and natural, than that hellish thing. It ate for nothing, unable to even enjoy. 

Squad Leader Hanji had remarked upon that, hadn’t they, that the Titans spit up when they get overstuffed. Pointless, empty hunger.  
\--  
The corner of the hall dropped off right at the door of the Lieutenant Commander’s office. Nanaba held his breath. 

Mike‘s bitter laughter drifted around the corner. “Milo just got done complaining to me that his new bunk mate snored.”

“He’s getting his sleep now.” The Commander. 

The door creaked on its hinges; they were standing in the doorway. One of them leaned on the wall, the wood creaking with the weight. 

“Eleven,” the Commander said grimly.

A beat. Then, the Lieutenant Commander: “Could have been twelve.”

“Mike.” One of them shifted; bodies moved closer, maybe farther apart. Nanaba dared not peak around the corner. “You know the difference a single soldier can make.”

Nanaba tongued the thick healing patch of skin along his cheek. _Till they shit their pants._

“I’ll take eleven over twelve.”

A footstep; the door closed. Nanaba backed away a step, then one, inching, but nothing came from the hall. No one came around the corner. The door had closed on them. Nanaba’s next step backed him into a body. He couldn’t stop the shriek that jumped from his throat, the sudden wrack of his heartbeat slotted against his rubs. 

“Easy,” Levi murmured. He rested a strange and small hand on Nanaba’s shoulder, trying to make peace with the young cadet’s nerves. 

“Don’t hold your breath for either of them to come out anytime soon,” Levi said. Instinctively, Nanaba knew Levi would. Even in the mostly-dark of the hallway, Nanaba could see the haunted look in the captain’s eyes that followed the return from an expedition. Three expeditions and Nanaba knew the look already. Children in the street knew it just watching the dirge. 

“Mike lost Stine. He’ll want you.”

“I’m not good enough for the Lieutenant Commander’s squad.” The words slipped out before he could think past the pitiful and slight relief that Stine had treated himself kindly before the expedition. Levi quirked an eyebrow, his expression flickering. 

“No, you aren’t. Erwin knows it too, even if Mike argues otherwise. But you still can save someone’s life, evidently. Maybe Erwin will approve it, hoping you save Mike’s.” Levi shrugged, feigning disinterest but that was a lie; the man hugged himself immediately, looked away from Nananba with a clench of his jaw. Nanaba hoped Levi let himself cry, even still, even after so many deaths, like Mike might be doing right now, with the Commander.

Mike wants him; Captain Levi wouldn’t make that up. “What do I do?”

“Get good enough.” In the mostly-dark, Levi stared right through Nanaba. “Be everything you can be for him.”

It was the day, the month, everything. It was Squad Leader Milo half-gone in the grass. The bloody stains on the Titan Chana had felled that belonged to a human, to a comrade. It was the damning lack of evidence that said Chillas had been swallowed; the empty saddles that came through the gates, the empty stalls.

It was wanting to live beyond simply not dying. 

“Does he want a man?”

It wasn’t the question he should be asking.

Levi didn‘t miss a beat, just blinked real slow at Nanaba, sizing him - her - them, up and down. “Be whatever the fuck you wanna be long as it isn’t dead.” 

“Good advice, sir.”

Captain Levi almost smiled, right then. “Get gone.” And Nanaba said nothing to that but a salute, not a word about the captain remaining, holding his breath into the night, holding his own and only body together in the empty hall.


	10. whelping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wulf and Eadwacer (Anonymous Ballad, circa 960-990 AD)loose translation by Michael R. Burch  
> Wild curs pursue him like crippled game.  
> They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.   
> We are so different.  
> Wulf's on one island; I'm on another.  
> His island's a fortress, surrounded by fens.  
> Here bloodthirsty men howl for sacrifice.   
> They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.   
> We are so different.  
> My thoughts pursued Wulf like panting hounds.   
> Whenever it rained and I sobbed, disconsolate,  
> huge, battle-strong arms grabbed and controlled me.  
> It felt good, to a point, but the end was loathsome.  
> We are so different.  
> Wulf, oh, my Wulf! My desire for you  
> has made me sick; your seldom-comings  
> have left me famished, deprived of real meat.   
> Do you hear, Heaven-Watcher? A wolf has borne  
> our wretched whelp to the woods.  
> One can easily sever what never was one:  
> our song together.

Spring had tried to stretch her day long for the Survey Corp; she got them through the gates on the last float of light. It wasn’t that Mike had been crying last night; hadn’t been shaking to hysterics; but Erwin had unclipped his gear; let Mike do the same to him. In a room swimming candlelit, they took off the wraps of war on their bodies. It ached familiarly, like quick redhot years together. Mike’s body bedrock beneath Erwin’s. 

 

“We’re the ones writing the notices now,” Mike had said. “Eleven isn’t so bad.”

“I’ll tell the mothers that,” Erwin had replied, swallowing thickly. 

Mike didn’t like sleeping alone, and Erwin rarely did, not for a full night; these days Levi came and went from his bed like a prowl. The Commander’s room indulged enough space for Erwin to enjoy a bed more than wide enough to accommodate himself and a companion (Shadis had been awash in all that empty space) but Mike pushed the boundaries, pushed Erwin, tucked him under and into his body. The letters waited.

They didn’t fuck.

Levi’s there, in the smeared morning. The windows are wide, wet pink sky hanging past the silhouette of him. He’s smoking with one hand and drinking tea in the other. From behind, he’s a gem, he’s ridiculous, one hand drooping loose from the wristbone, smoldering red tip its own small sunblot. The other arm is jointed like a doll, a bony still elbow. They alternate to his turned away face, like an ungainly dance.

Mike picks his head up from the pillow and sighs, body a bellow, lays his cheek over Erwin’s collarbone to listen to the wallowing tick of his heart minced through the narrow flutes of his bones. 

“We’re awake,” Erwin breaks softly into the day.

Levi makes no motion of having heard him, but Erwin is quite certain he did. 

At the high points with Marie, when amours replaced the sweat and dust of labor with a sweeter flush of exhaustion, Erwin would envision a future with her–  
Running away on horseback, leaving behind his ruins, his questions, his certain death. But the vision faded as quickly as it came; he would put babies in her, put children on this wretched earth. The walls would watch them grow and die, bearing over them, indifferent: the punishing saints. His blood, he knows, is blaspheme itself. His sins will afflict his children and theirs. He envisions a future cloistered in stone, hair a hydra’s head. Vampiric, lonely, cursed. He feels cursed to his very blood.

He’ll never allow himself to beget such suffering. And Marie– His mother set the example quite fine for the woes of widows. His father had taught him how to treat a woman by an example Erwin could not do without, no matter how he wished. Women knew how to let go only because men were so good at leaving. 

But it’s a fantasy he spins anyway, when he’s high and thrilled. He fantasized peace when the cream-fat of Marie’s thighs warmed his hands.  
How different it is, to have the muscle of Mike, his tired enduring guilt pressed to him; to have the bladesharp shape of Levi the first thing his eyes behold. He closes his eyes and remembers Marie, violet smelling; now, only violence. Marie, the girlish twitch of her under his fingers, the pink of her, the innocence. How he’d sold himself to keep her, how he sold himself to get deeper into the gut of this government.

Only to be here.

Commander.

How he’d fucked to get here. How he’d killed. How he was nothing but a next killing; still waiting for the real killing. Someone out there is pretending at a people they can’t possibly know. 

“Your heart’s racing,” Mike interrupts. 

Erwin opens his eyes and exhales loudly, lips smacking from a tight seal, his chest one big heave of breath. Levi’s watching now, no tea, no smoke, standing over him from the bedside to scrutinize the drama of Erwin’s brow, his unclear eyes.

Outside, a broken wail rises. 

The bedroom beats one heart together before three split. Mike sits up, sliding out of bed full dressed. Erwin’s groaning into his hands, shoulders shaking in a dry anguish. Levi’s leaning out of the window, spying down onto the bent double form of a woman just inside the barracks, heartbreak unrepentant out of her mouth. Some of the cadets hadn’t gone out in yesterday mission; some of the officers neither. Erwin would never take his whole scant army to die in one foul day. And a cadet, fetching water, was standing there having no doubt delivered the news of a child not come home before the passive regretful letter of a death notice could even begin to take shape in ink. 

The woman shrieks; and the sun rises; and the day comes abreast her grief. 

Levi turns away, face pinched in shadow. He regards Erwin on the bed, how his Commander is suddenly unfit, too young, just a man holding his face in naked hands, eyes wide and stricken. Those eyes burn unseeing until Levi steps towards him, then they snap to the constant dark of their mirror lovers. Levi. Levi averts his eyes quickly, characteristically, tipping his head at an angle. He always appears to show off his cheek for a slap or a kiss – inviting Erwin so often for both. And Erwin sees now clearly that his Levi hadn’t slept at all, skin barely hanging onto his face, dark pitted circles beneath stung eyes.

“I have the names and next of kins addresses ready,” Levi lets the space beside Erwin know.

The weeping woman terrifies Erwin, even out of sight, nothing but a ravage noise coming for him. It pins him to the bed. Goti would set the mattress afire to chase him up. She’d be out there screaming. How she’d screamed. How she’d wolf howl’d. 

“Erwin,” Mike jolts him. Erwin lifts his head from his hands, wiping his palms down his face, tugging roughly on the skin.

“Thank you, Levi,” he says roughly, words briefly muffled as he strips off his sleep shirt. “Mike, would you please attend to the – to the – woman,” he stumbles, turning away from his officers in search of a clean shirt, in search of control.

“Yes, sir,” Mike salutes; Erwin isn’t watching. Mike hesitates before leaving, holding out for something. Levi’s gone mute, off-balanced by Erwin’s own faltering. It leaves Mike prickling and he huffs when he passes into the hallway, rolling out his shoulders and striding down the hall quickly. It is quite good that Erwin made him lieutenant commander. 

The best show of judgment he’s made yet. 

Grief doesn’t have time to come, to rest within them. Last night’s already fading fast; Mike’s leaving the officer’s quarter of the barracks, coming out to the yard, and running into Nile Dawk.

“Zacharias,” Nile winces his name, rubbing his nose.

“Nile,” Mike greets with some trepidation. They’re boys again, sizing each other up; they’re men; they’re Erwin’s old bedmates; they’re lieutenant commanders.  
They step back from each other in tandem, salute as equal ranks. Mike’s older but newer to the position. He admits to himself curiosity as to how Nile climbs the ranks so fast; but he’s only be LC of the Police for a few months. He’s not that experienced. 

“Where’s Erwin?”

And there—the informality.

“Commander Smith is preparing for the day,” Mike says evenly, stressing Erwin’s title just to enjoy the twitch of Nile’s eye. The emotion is short lived, replaced by a stern uprightness.

“I need to speak with him. Now.” He shows no sign of listening to the now softer sobbing woman at the edge of the yard; someone, another officer probably, is leading her away.   
Nile isn’t usually one for such directness or efficiency. Levi can and will complain at length about Nile’s blabbering, something Mike can attest to. The man isn’t smooth, nor does he cut to the wick. And it’s this that makes Mike blink and find himself, this now, and look at Nile properly. See the crookedness of his clothes, the cape that’s got flecks of mud along it, the boots not bothered to be polished.

Nile hasn’t been visiting from Sina and decided to drop by. He’s ridden here fast and hard.

“When did you leave Sina?” Mike questions, dread gathering. Walls knows what’s happened to bring such a harpy to their door.

“At the asscrack of dawn yesterday, before you were out of the Gates,” he snips. “I have news for your Commander.”

Mike wants to send him off with directions but he wants to be able to prepare Erwin if only by a second, so he turns to lead, Nile on his heels. Erwin answers the knock, to Mike’s surprise; he’d been expecting Levi. Erwin’s dressed but his hair is wet, yet styled, and he’s harried.

“Nile?”

There goes Mike’s plan.

“He has urgent words for you,” Mike informs. Erwin leans into the door a bit, lets it open; Levi’s sitting in the corner squatting on a chair and wrapped up in himself.   
Erwin looks between Nile and Mike for a moment, suspicious and high alert; that terrible hunted look in his eyes again. 

“Thank you, Lieutenant Commander Zacharias,” he nods, dismissing Mike with an easing gesture of his hand. “Nile,” Erwin murmurs, opening the door; Nile steps inside, shoulders squared, attention obviously drawn by Levi. The door closes to the last sight of Erwin with his hands clenched at his sides, shoulders squared.  
\--

“What’s brought you here?” Erwin asks, struck between familiarity and hostility. He ruffles a towel over his wet hair but his eyes stay firmly on Nile who’s standing over a remote and unmoved Levi.

“A murder,” Nile says flatly. Levi turns his head more, neck getting new grotesque, ear to the words, but he won’t lift his head. Strange creature, Nile thinks a little curious and spiteful. He’d like to touch him, just once. It would satiate some animal sense-need that quivers when he’s in Levi’s presence. 

Erwin, at his vanity, fingers his long and wickedly sharp shaving razor.

“A murder,” Erwin repeats, watching through the mirror. He debates dismissing Levi but knows that the result wouldn’t be worth it. Right now, Levi would either disobey entirely or leave and vanish and Erwin isn’t sure which would be worse. A murder; Levi would never let the issue drop. Nile had announced it purposefully, no doubt, not asking for confidentiality. He either believes them so entwined that no secrets exist between them, or he wants to test that theory.

“Yes,” Nile affirms slowly. He gives up on staring an understanding of Levi out of the fiend and turns to face Erwin, catching his gaze in the mirror. “Our mutual…” he purses his lips, stopping himself, and Erwin’s gut sinks preemptively, “Donegal. Brigadier Donegal was murdered the night before your expedition.”

An amphibiotic inversion of organs sickens in a heave from the stomach of Erwin; he lets one startled gag of breath, in revulsion and long buried, compartmentalized wretchedness rock out of him. 

The sleepy viper coil of Levi’s body unwinds in a kick; he’s standing atop the chair he’d occupied so lazy and distant, a puppet yanked to action. He’s armed, Sina’s tits, he’s armed.

“Levi,” Erwin barks, but he doesn’t move, clutches the vanity. Levi’s chest heaves, and his favorite playknife is in his hands; like what, he’s gonna gut Nile for upsetting Erwin? Nile, to his credit, barely pays Levi mind; but the hairs on his arms and neck are prickling stiff-scared. He’d be a crazy fool not to be scared of that man. 

“I thought you’d like to know sooner than later, Erwin,” Nile continues.

Erwin nods, trying to keep the jerk out of it. He thinks of reaching to make shaving scream but he doesn’t trust himself to get through pretending not to quiver. So he pushes away, lets the momentum take him fast to Nile to clap him on the shoulder. It startles Nile; he flinches at the beginning of the gesture, but to Erwin’s surprise, he returns it immediately once his head beats out his body’s strung fear instinct. They barricade the air in between their bodies.

“I appreciate it, Nile.” The muscle in Erwin’s jaw jumps. “Is there any indication of who or the motivation.”

But he knows already. He’s not stupid. Nile can see that Erwin’s already guessed.

“His forehead was stamped white.”

Nile releases Erwin’s shoulder to lift his hand, pointed finger straight, thumb upright, rest of his fingers folded. He points the gun at Erwin’s forehead. “Bang.”  
Erwin tips his head forehead enough that the tip of Nile’s finger touches hot to his skin. From under his weary brows, he spies Levi’s irritated confusion.

“When the Horizon murders a series of officers ten years ago, this is how they marked them. They’d stamp them either before or after they put a bullet through the officer’s head,” he enlightens. Levi’s eyes crease accordingly. He relaxes from a near-spring to a slightly more relaxed pose, leaning his weight back and letting his hand loosen on its clutch at the dagger’s hilt.

“He wasn’t shot,” Nile clarifies, face grim. “He was tortured. Bound, gagged, genitals mutilated. Burned and cut. Bruising around the throat. It’s not entirely clear what killed him; blood loss or suffocation.”

Nile’s still got his finger a pistol pointing at Erwin. Erwin stares down the damning barrel. He swallows audibly, eyes burning.

“He talked about you. A few times. Just to me. After you transferred.” Nile whispers, too low for Levi to catch with his straining ears. Erwin did not think he could be more grateful in this moment. “You don’t have to pretend to be sad. That’s why I came to tell you.”

Erwin nods slowly, and Nile takes the weapon of his hand away, touching Erwin’s arm reassuringly. 

“I am. Troubled.”

“Good. Don’t let anyone think you’d have reason to be otherwise,” Nile urges, all old loyalty, brotherhood. “But whoever killed them wanted him to suffer.”

Erwin hums at that, contemplative. His mouth curls up. It neatens to a line. He’s in control. One eyebrow quirks up. “I believe him capable of inspiring such rage,” Erwin remarks, salt dry.

Nile withdraws his comfort at the tone. “Indeed.”

There’s a moment when all three do nothing, standing there. Finally, Nile clears his throat, catching Erwin out of his reverie. “I suppose that’s everything.”

“Thank you, Nile,” Erwin repeats. He means it. Nile hasn’t acted like his friend in years; Erwin hasn’t either. “Stay tonight, if you’d please. I imagine you rode your horse to death.”  
Nile winces. “I did. But the Commander of the Survey Corp needed to know about the change in the Horizon situation – and Erwin Smith about his old adviser.”

Erwin returns to his vanity decisively. “Captain Levi, show the Lieutenant Commander to the officer’s guest room. Let An know we have a guest and to see to him. After that, lead a standard post-expedition routine. I need to consult with Hanji and write the reports. I apologize, but I won’t be much available today.

His hands don’t shake as he dips and wrings a rag out in the still steaming bowl of water sitting unassuming on his vanity. He’ll have to thank Levi.

Levi hops down wordlessly, soundlessly. He’s in his favorite pair of soft kit boots, a luxury he wears only inside, whisper soft. There’s something comforting about seeing him in them, some sign of peace in his body when it isn’t cased in rigid leather and black straps. He leaves without salute.

“Best follow him before you lose him,” Erwin suggests, not in the least concerned about decorum. But Nile doesn’t go. 

“Can you think of why he’d be the first one they’d kill after all these years?” he asks.

Erwin’s eyes are closed, a wrinkle stressing between his brows. “Not a clue,” he murmurs, lifting the steaming cloth and pressing it hot and suffocating to his face; Titans never smell so clean.

\--

Eleven soldiers died yesterday. Five recovered bodies. Four gone. One bled out on the way back. Seven are in medical beds. Erwin visits each one of them before he touches the letters of notice. Sonders has his legs from the halfway down his thighs gone; he’d passed out at the bone saw. If infection doesn’t take him, Erwin will find him a book-end job. He’s a smart fellow. Shouldn’t have been here in the first place.

The complete demolition of Milo’s squad is a hole in the ranks but they fill it just as surely as a march of ants rounds the sudden blockage of a stone. They close over the wound. Service is a lesson in scarring.

It feels like the first real day of being Commander. It should have been yesterday, outside of the Walls, with his soldiers fighting around him; but it’s today in the afterimage of death. In the slow recovery of bodies, the silence aside from crying that can’t help itself. It’s passing the yards to see Levi and Mike and all the officers leading their squads through stretches and body checks and gear checks, in the gentleness of people’s hands on each other, like they are the only thing gentle in this world. By noon, everyone’s dismissed to their own privacy, to do as they’d like. Those lucky not to have gone out yesterday tend to the horses and the mess hall and the water buckets in the bathing rooms.   
It’s not leading them into the fight that hits him, it’s bringing them home and knowing he’ll make them do it all again.

Because they must. He must. It must be him leading them; that is the only right in this world, that he lead them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got too excited to wait. I probably wont update for awhile now. The election made me hole up and write fanfic instead of go out into the real world but I need to get back to my shit.


	11. annunciation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> " I am biting my tongue  
> Trying not to howl at the moon"  
> -joseph Capehart "Wolves"

His father did not come home one day.

His mother opened the front door every hour, stepping out into the street to stare down both ends. the sun perpetually set no matter where she looked regardless of the time of day.

“Where could he be,” she demanded of no one. She made herself up in his absence, washing her body, combing her hair. She had no more students coming by the house. When her husband returned, she would make him very sorry. When it grew dark and she’d fed their son, she decided she would yell. When she went to bed alone, she changed her mind. Wherever Ewald was, it must be serious. He could have sent someone-- she would kiss him. He’d be tired. She’d make him happy that he’d come home.

His mother stopped stepping out onto the street. 

“Mama,” Gabriel croaked on a pale morning. They’d taken to sleeping together. Face hot and wet with the remains of nightmare fright and stomach bubbling up his throat from guilt, he told his mother he must be why Papa is gone. From even behind the Walls, the Titans could kill pieces of family.

The terrifying absence of her husband solved itself that same morning. A doleful knock on the door interrupted her tutoring. Without her husband, who taught most of the neighborhood children, she had taken on more students than she had pens to teach the fine script writing Ewald had fell in love with; the cant of her wrist wrought poetry, he said. Gabriel has grown busily learning the flowing script of his mother’s teaching.

A warden greeted her in low tones, a cart draped in fabric behind him, a clutch of gray-eyed Military Police standing crisp in the morning light. She was unable to recognize the bludgeoned, bloated face of the man shown to her, but the jacket with her embroidering along the collar marked the body as her husband’s. 

She wept for the first time, unable to prolong her denial. Evidence had come to her door. If you cannot stop for death...Gabriel cut his thumb on the nib of his pen, ink and blood staining his whole hand. These things happen, the warden explained. Everything valuable had been lifted from Ewald’s pockets. Even his schoolbooks.

Staring at the waterlogged fingers of the body, Gabriel said aloud ”how odd that they wouldn’t take his clothes.” 

He looked over at the witnesses of his mother’s grief with his unsettling eyes, a washed out winter sky. He would struggle to remember the faces onlooking but not the eerie suspicion that too many of them were complete strangers, not a single face recognizable from the neighborhood patrol. He recalled, years later, their clipping heels in advancement, the open and close of his front door before a wash of gray. He remembered a man in a cloak with very young eyes and very old hands; a very tall man with a crooked hat and crooked face. Gabriel could only accept their promise that they wouldn’t hurt him or his mother fully aware of the conditionality of that statement. They subjected his memories to mercury, all fumes and delirium. They thought they scrubbed him clean behind his father’s blue eyes. His mother was made bone white inside.

The Church, which Gabi hadn’t attended since Gabriel’s infancy, offered their services in the face of Ewald’s murder and burned the body and the violence implanted on it free of charge. The community fed them for a week. They lived like embers of themselves, drifting remnants. It felt like they died too. Gabriel’s thumb carried a black scar, ink under the skin. Half-remembered thoughts haunted him, things living and dead shambled through the house. Papa. Papa. What secrets did you know, man and beast belted by an umbilical cord, spinal fluid gluttony. 

On the sixth night, well after the town had plunged into a deep dark, there came an insistent knock on their door. Gabriel and his mother woke together, moved like a storm through the house -- one weeping rain, the other plunging waves -- his mother for the door and Gabriel for the largest knife they owned.

“Mama,” he whispered, pale eyes glinting in the dark. She made a cutting motion with her hand, silencing him.

“Gabi,” a man’s voice carried through the door, his mother’s name invoked between knocks. “Gabi, be in there. Gabi.” Hushed, urgent. 

Gabriel looked up at the dark cut of night. It wanted to sink right through the window.

“Aless?” his mother whispered, pressed to the door. 

“Gabi! Sina’s grace, you’re alive.”

Gabi threw open the door, inviting in the night and Aless. Even Gabriel could recognize his father’s closest friend. Aless lived a three days ride away. He must have only found out now about Ewald. Where his father had been light, Aless was dark, almost red, but he had pale eyes as well. Gabriel mostly remembered him by his eyes, the likeness of them. Aless hugged his mother, rocking her as she held tight.

“Sina, Rose, Marie,” he heaved breathlessly into his mother’s curly hair, still tensed. He picked Gabriel out from the shadows and finally his shoulder relaxed. “You’re both safe.”

Like the days before, tonight melted in Gabriel's mind. Gabi bagged everything valuable in the bed’s dressings, leather bags. They took a horse with no burn in its rump out of town, stars bearing down on them. Stars upon stars leading their way, directionless.

Aless’s words rang out above, gold and timber fallen: “You may not believe me right now, but this is necessary. Ewald gave forbidden knowledge. Your father knew too much, knew secrets that the royalty couldn’t have whispered. So he was removed.” 

His mother insisted that her husband had been killed by bandits and Gabriel cried at the slightest nudge otherwise, regurgitating like sickness the truth of man riddled to monster. At the end of it all, Aless insisted: “You are not safe.”

So they dove to paranoia, embraced by persistent self-reassurance.

-  
Aless oriented them in his home. He lived without wife, without girl or boy, a bare homeless house. Gabriel dared not touched anything, mind rolling over in upon itself. His mother fought a dredge of fake memories daily. He, alone, endured the suspicion of strangers looking down upon his father's face and the chattering ghosts of titanstitanstitans. The walls loomed. It was myth recreated. Though Gabriel could read, paper and pamphlet alike seemed lies. He was too removed to be considered inconsolable as he pieced together his own mind.

“Gabi, listen to me,”  
and “Gabi, please,”  
then “for Ewald.”  
Until “for Gabriel. For your son. Believe me. I would never lie.” 

Aless held his mother's hands and begged on his knees before her gloomy eyes. She wore black and held herself like a virgin. The sun set east and west. Gabriel couldn’t remember what was real in the face of his mother’s doubt. She believed in bandits and he in policemen. Nights sank rather than rose. Gabriel thought he saw Aless kiss the center of his mother’s palms, iron rust for lips. He thought he saw a lot of things. 

One night, Gabi crept through the square home into her son’s cot, four posts and a rope bed. “What does Aless ask you,” she whispered into his ear, curled a half moon round him. Gabriel turned to her soft breasts. 

“What papa told me.” His mother’s silence prodded. “Don’t you remember?”

“I can’t,” she said grimly. A door had opened and closed, full of strangers. Gabriel had the eyes of his father, and his mother was all very dark. He thought he saw a lot of things.

“Mama...” He found her hands; how lovely she was. “He said that Humanity made the Titans. That they are made of men, women, children. That everything we know is a lie.” He repeated it to himself morning noon and night like a prayer so he would not forget. The secret chatter fear in the din of living. “We live in fear and tyranny. The monarchy deceives us.”

She, without great revelation, hugged him and swore the foreigner god’s name that Aless cursed when the stove burned him. “I can’t seem to recall.”

In the days that passed, Gabi maintained the house at all hours of the day despite the little work to be done, despite how unnecessary her contribution. Aless pressed her otherwise, surprisingly gentle for a man his size, an unsure air radiating around him. He made abortive movements for Gabi, hands settling and dashing from her shoulders again and again. Gabriel did not associate Aless’s hesitant motions as a result of his own relentless unnerving stare. Grief stifled his precocious and locomotive behavior of before, the excited child that had been stoked by his father. The previous gabbing of his mouth migrated to his eyes; his mother often woke to her son staring at the newborn worry lines that lingered about her face even in sleep. He stared as though he would summon by sight alone a new reality.

They were forbidden from leaving the house. Aless provided for them. He dared not let Gabi even hang her dresses where they could be seen from the street. Her drawers dried next to the kitchen stove. They added to the summer humidity so that everyone could smell lye mingling on top of breakfast. 

“In a week or two, I’ll have someone make you new papers.” It was the same explanation again and again. “You’ll have new names and we will leave Sina and join with--”

“What you refuse to tell me,” Gabi interrupted, an outburst tenuously held under control, “is why we need new papers. Why we need new identities. Why Gabriel and I cannot go home or even outside.”

Street sounds crept under the crooked door. Gabriel liked to watch the shadows pass, feet stomp somewhere beyond.

“Gabi,” Aless struggled. He reached for her hand over his bowl of soup. She jerked away, up out of her seat. The narrow-backed chair hit the floor. 

“No!” Gabi shouted, loud in the hollow home. Gabriel set down his spoon, as if his mother’s outburst had long been expected, undisturbing. Gabi’s eyes, quickly filling with tears from a well of frustration, sugared her gaze of her son. “No,” she repeated, harder, quieter.

“Mama.” Gabriel slid off his seat, but Gabi stepped away from his consoling approach. He stopped, cool expression wobbling, pudging with hot emotion at the tops of his cheeks.

“Gabi,” Aless tried, turning in his seat.

“NO.” She put hands to her face, breathing sharply through her nose, the crooked row of her bottom teeth glaring from the black agony of her mouth. “Stop. GabiGabiGabi. What? Another vague reassurance? Don’t lie, Aless. What is happening? Tell me. Don’t you make my son do it.”

“Alright,” Aless huffed. The house creaked. “You want to know, Gabi? Why Gabriel can’t keep his thoughts straight, like some simplehead?” He swept his hand, gesturing to Gabriel. “Why your husband was tortured and killed?”

She sucked in a breath, staring out from the warped rootwork of her fingers. “He was not tortured. He was killed by a gang.”

 

“He wasn’t Gabi,” Aless culled his anger, back to the gentle cadence of condolences. “Your husband told Gabriel something he ought not of.”

“About titans,” Gabi spat mockingly, eyes shooting off to her son. “Some fool headedness. As if Ewald would, as if it would mean anything.”

“But Mama,” Gabriel pressed, at her side out of nowhere, touching her elbow and lowering the claws of her hands. “That’s what father told me, and that’s what the man in the cloak made you forget.”

Aless inhaled sharply from the table, lurching to attention. “The man in the cloak, Gabriel, what did he look like?”

If only it were that easy. Gabriel cocked his head away from his mother, the angle letting his mind call upon aborted recollection. “Like a boy stuffed in an old man’s skin. With big blue eyes.” He opened and closed his fists beside his head like a clamshell snapping open and close. Aless licked his dry lips, a great big breath leaving him just a shrunk of shoulders. 

“Well, anyway,” Aless sighed, scrubbing a hand over his hair and down, scratching through his beard. “That’s what the suspicion is, Gabi. Ewald,” he paused again, waited till he had Gabi’s full attention and Gabriel’s too. “Ewald had theories, don’t know where he got them, always had them long as I knew him. But he wasn’t the only one. There’s a bunch of us with those sorts of thoughts.”

“What Gabriel says Ewald told him, that’s treason,” Gabi stuttered. 

“The whole damn Crown is treason,” Aless roared, smacking his palm flat on the table. Dishes and spoons jumped a jig. “Treason against Humanity!” Spittle flew from his lip. He had to suck it back in, suck his roar back in and shake it off and recollect, a hot flush up his neck and face, an angry vein bulging up the side of his forehead. “This world is the Titans against Humanity against the Crown against a rock and a fucking hard place. That’s the world we really live in. You married a radical and had his son who by Sina’s bloody cunt-”

“Aless!”

“-remembers when he should not.”

“Barely,” Gabriel said, derisive. He had succeeded in relaxing his mother’s tense arms and now stroked the smooth top of her hand as he insinuated himself against her soft quaking belly. “I barely remember.”

“It was a team dressed like Military Police, a tall man in a crooked hat with an ugly face, a small man in a cloak, blue eyes. Better evidence than we ever had before.” Aless ticked off the good points on his fingers, small triumphs.

“A radical,” Gabi laughed, looking upwards in a helpless search of consolation. When none came, she wandered back over to the table and dropped down, face in her hands. Exhaustion took her. “My husband was a radical and the Crown had him murdered. And my memory wiped? Gabriel’s mind broken into? That’s what you’re telling me, Aless?” She turned her cheek into her palm, face devastatingly tired. “And now we are wanted by the Crown?”

Sometimes hysterical laughter was the only way to go.

A horse headed their way carried the forger to make them new lives. In the interim, Gabi wore holes in the floor with her pacing. Gabriel, dauntless, found a way to the roof where he’d lay out all day baking on the hot wood and under the hot sun. He peeped on the strangers passing on the street. The policemen would know that he and his mother were gone. They were in the wind but not dead; as long as they lived, so did the threat against the Crown. They killed his father but not his seed, not his words or his theory. Gabriel remembered. They took his father. They took his name. The people below had no idea. Gabriel giggled, hand clapped over his mouth, afraid he’d be caught up on the roof, knowing too much. No wonder his father had told him about the Titans; he must have been going mad all by himself with such a big secret.

His mother’s nighttime pacing reached a climax one night before it turned into low shouts with Aless, crying, and then a disconcerting silence slowly finished with the velvety whispers of Aless’s promises that wove into his mother’s dark hair as he held her. Her grief didn’t reach Gabriel, not the tears or the erratic moods. When a knock sounded on the door a few days later, Gabriel was still on the roof, hiding out from his mother and Aless. He fantasized routinely of dying, stretched out sweating in his clothes, sweat staining his collar and making the buttons burn to the touch. The more he recalled his father’s face, the harder it became. Memories from before now seemed to lose traction in his mind, fragmenting and stuttering. He thought he stopped existing there on the roof, face red under the sun, eyes staring up and flowing over in white tears from straining to stay open. He floated in the black and blue spots that lingered behind his eyelids, bruises from the sky, the same colour of his father’s bloated skin. 

The knocking drove him off the roof. He scrambled in through the back window in Aless’s room, stumbling out through the door and into the main room. 

“Gabriel,” his mother hissed, twitching her face at him in reprimand. Gabriel scuffed his way over to her, pawing sweat off his face. The forger, who had existed as a shadowy entity in Gabriel’s young mind, was no more than a withered woman whose origins seemed lost in the folds of her face, eyes squinting through craggy folds. Her dry hands stole the dampness from Gabriel’s when she took his hands in a show of familiar civility, thumbs pressing into the meat of his palms.

“The infamous Min,” Aless introduced with a low current of pride despite the context.

“So young for a second life,” Min mused, releasing Gabriel and with a charming grunt of despair for the world she lived in, took her seat where she unloaded carefully a case with papers, inks, brushes, pens, and most notably a stolen City Court stamp. Gabi migrated behind her, inspecting the equipment with hawkish intensity. Min smiled all the while, the shape entirely lost in the age of her face. 

“Do him first,” Gabi prompted, hovering over Gabriel.

“What’s the new name?” Min asked, the paper underneath her hand transformed in an hour’s time. A perfected craft. “Not even a Third. A first time to write a new child into law for such a reason. Well, boy?”

“Erwin,” Gabriel announced, chin up, heart pounding. He’d never felt closer to his father. “Erwin Smith.”

The writing looked nothing like his mother’s looping scrawl. 

Gabi laid a hand on her son’s shoulder and squeezed. Erwin Smith. She bid farewell to the remains of her husband in a flourish of ink. Watched her son become some stranger man’s boy. The stamp met red ink, kissed the corner in commitment.

“And you?” Min asked, taking a fresh sheet and dusting it clean with a thin brush. 

“Goti. It’s Goti.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please enjoy backstory. the demon that started this all. xoxo.
> 
> for the quote it's the last two lines from this slam poem which is about masculinity and the expectations in masculinity.  
> http://www.mtv.com/news/2115612/patriarchy-hurts-men-too/


	12. sweet talker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen for the Mood™ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Rdiy9IzATQ

A life of paranoia inclined Levi to watch doorways, the to-and-fro movement of people; to be stirred awake by the rustling of wind and the creep of shadows; moonlight through trees, now that was still a novelty; caught himself staying awake thinking of stars and Isabel and Farlan and how long the night stretched when you asked up at the heavens. Paranoia, though, that wasn’t admiring eyes but keen ones, a ready-twitch pelted under the skin. People. He didn’t understand them. He tried to, used to, when he was learning. Kenny on his case about how Levi didn’t act right. Always staring, then not looking enough; never using his eyes right, never holding his body right. Words slow, responses off-beat. Follow the script! But he couldn’t fault that Levi _got it._ Levi _got something,_ something unnoticeable to others. A current in the air, a thrum in the blood. Levi felt something that no one else did. He swore by it, he did – and Erwin always believes him, when Levi makes it known. When something’s off – he can’t doubt Levi, can’t doubt his preternatural abilities when on the field Levi is fastest, meanest creature. In a year, he’d climbed past them all, climbed up to Mike’s kill counts – and Mike, Mike was a beast himself. He never had to double back for a kill, not with those arms wielding the blades. He never achieved Levi’s speed but brute strength alone, that keen nose – damn, they make quite the pair.

 _What a lucky boy Erwin is,_ Levi thinks to himself. _What a lucky boy to have such good playmates. It must be nice._

Erwin leans into Nile’s shoulder to tell a joke to the others.

_It must be nice. Lucky boy._

Levi lays a hand on the bulging muscle of Erwin’s thigh, pleased to watch the duck of his head. Levi scratches his nails leisurely at his leg, up and down, into the seam of his pants; Erwin twitches; red creeps up the back of his neck. Levi likes this, to do this to him. Watch Erwin power through it; watch him drink with one hand, continue speaking even as his jaw jumped, his eyes dart about the room, shoot quick chastising glances at Levi – ah, now, Erwin’s dropped a hand beneath the table, finding Levi’s. Their fingers brush, lock together; their palms kiss and squeeze. Levi slides closer, a knot in his chest easing, warmth settling. Erwin presses Levi’s hand to his hard stomach, trying to stop him from doing anything that’ll cause a scene. Levi bites a quick smile into Erwin’s shoulder, chuffing in delight at the beleaguered sigh that escapes Erwin’s lips.

“Alright?” Nile questions, sensing he’s lost Erwin’s attention. Levi likes to make Erwin think about bed, about fucking, about anything but the Military Police and the old times and the times to come, times out past the walls and the certain death all around him.

Levi wants to cry. He does. He ducks his head behind the shadow of Erwin’s body and bites him again, whimpering into the meat of his shoulder. What a miserable fucking world. What a beautiful man; he never imagined as a child that such a man might exist. What a wretchedly unfortunate man.

“Yes,” Erwin pacifies Nile. He releases the lock of Levi’s fingers; they’d matched like the teeth of a key. “Excuse me.”

It’s a surprise when Erwin turns in his seat, half gathers Levi. A hand on his cheek, a firm pinch of fingers at his jaw to bring him ‘round to meet – and avoid – Erwin’s eyes. He slides off to the side, lets Erwin’s stroke considering at his smooth cheek, brush his hair back from his face. Levi likes that. Is that stupid? Simple? The softer Erwin touches him, the more Levi tries not to die.

Someone is watching them.

Levi can’t see them, but someone is leaning against the bar, twisted to peer out from a hood. It’s cold; there’s a rim of fur from the lining, a thick braid hanging down. They turn away.

 _What,_ Levi thinks. His mouth doesn’t move. No, it does; he’s nibbling on the pad of Erwin’s thumb. _What,_ he doesn’t shout at this watching stranger. But they’re looking away. Levi doesn’t look away. Erwin kisses him swiftly, mouth tasting like bitters.

“Alright?” Erwin asks, frowning a little. Levi forces himself to look at Erwin – Erwin’s face isn’t a face. It’s one of those nights. For fuck’s sake. Levi quivers, grits his jaw, and nods. He leans against Erwin’s side with a tired sigh and peers out from his slinking eyes at the people that come, to-and-fro. There’s nothing to be done. Erwin squeezes his knee beneath the table and hums, returns to his _dear old friend Nile_ , and Mike, Hanji and Chana.

The Watcher is talking. The keep shakes his head at the Watcher, scans the crowd, says something in return, works up to something, then booms out over the chattering assembling: “Is there a Gabriel in here?”

Erwin flinches against Levi.

No one calls out in recognition. People pause, glance around, shake their heads, pick up the threads of conversations. Levi rolls his eyes in his sockets, charged gaze upon Erwin. He looks freshly murdered. The Watcher at the bar has gone, left the building. Erwin laughs too hard at something someone’s said.

Liar.

He’s lying.

Sitting there smiling, passive, taut as a wire.

He’s all wrong.

Erwin drinks hard, gulping his beer empty, belches and slouches. The spectacle rocks Levi.

“I think I need some fresh air,” Erwin announces. Everyone’s a mumbling noise, a colorful din of distraction. Levi stands to let Erwin out of his seat; like hell he’s letting Erwin waltz around alone after some motherfucker got killed just the other day.

Erwin rests heavy hands on Levi’s shoulders, rocks him gently, all the indications of a drunk man. Liar!

“Levi,” Erwin entreats. His warm hands close around Levi’s neck, his thumbs curl beneath his jawline, muffle his ears, lift—lift Levi to his toes, draw him into a kiss that has no place here, amongst the public. Everyone knows they are this way, if not confirmed then suspected, made a joke of, disparaged, spoken of jealously, admiringly…everyone knows. But Erwin wouldn’t put on a show unless that’s his intention.

“Don’t follow me,” Erwin murmurs, all the appearances of sweet nothings. His eyes are wide, furious, the pupil’s narrow bullets. His lips shape softly over Levi’s, the tip of his nose, even his eyebrow. “I need you to watch Nile for me. Ask him about Fiskus’s response on Donegal’s murder. See if he slips up. I’ll be back.”

No.

Levi grabs Erwin’s hands hard, tugs on them. Erwin shakes his head sharply. “Please,” Erwin ask.

“Erwin,” Levi hisses. Goddamn you.

“I need you watching Nile. Let me take a walk, Levi. Don’t follow me.” Erwin pulls them closer, curls low to rest their forehead together. Levi loves him like this and hates him for it. His blue eyes, the sharp hook of his nose a warm brush over Levi’s cheek, those pleading lips kissing so sweet. What a miserable world. They’re all bound for death. Would anyone blame Levi for wanting Erwin? He was born out of a craving. “I’ll be safe. I know – I’ll be safe.”

Fool. Fucking fool man.

Levi nods, brows drawn and eyes dark. Fingers wind punishing into Erwin’s hair to yank him down without care to kiss. If Erwin started the show, Levi will follow through with the role given to him. That’s obedience. Levi kisses him hard, groaning into his mouth, biting his lip. A hot pink delight bounds up Levi’s spine to loosen the clench of his muscles when Erwin embraces him – that’s honesty. Hanji hoots; Chana whistles; Nile tsks disapprovingly. Levi shoves Erwin away with a smirk and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, slumping into his chair. Erwin blinks after him, dazed for only a second, a short-lived second, before he taps a two-fingered salute to his brow and winks, off on clipped heels.

“Levi! You’re a dog,” Hanji praises, reaching over the table to slap his chest.

He wolf grins. Like fuck is he letting Erwin go out into the night; and Levi knows without knowing that the Watcher is his target.

That shaken night looms in Levi’s mind. Erwin’s cries come back to him. How he’d seized up in fright, eyes gone wild, glazed, lost. The dislocation of his body, the shivering of it. He’d cried. He’d gasped. He’d clutched at Levi and bit to pieces ghosts, right there in Levi’s arms – and he expected Levi to let him walk into the night alone.

“Levi?”

Mike’s watching. Levi rubs his brows, groaning, tipping his head back. He makes the words happen. He makes them. He puts them into his mouth and spits them, searches for the right face to put over his, maybe, it’s a wincing near-miss.

“He thinks he’s subtle when he wants his dick sucked,” Levi hears himself say. He shoves away from the table and is out the door, a no-sound shadow creeping behind the Commander.

* * *

 

The night, though thick and cold, isn’t silent. Not here and not yet. The tavern’s on a popular street, a popular place in and of itself. There were garrison soldiers there and military police, on and off patrol alike. Erwin had made a show, perhaps too much of one, kissing Levi like that, but the spectacle would do him better. Erwin Smith, notorious slut. It’s an easier image than others, a manageable one. _I’m too busy fucking my ghetto pet to be a threat,_ Erwin thinks derisively. Levi must have known what he was about just then, to kiss him like that.

He cuts away from the street, squeezing down a narrow alley, scaring a cat from a fresh kill. Its hissing yowl reminds him of Levi, and he wants to laugh at how stupid he is, but his hearts trembling and he can already smell a sour sweat building underneath his clothes. Something like fear makes his bowels tremble and his bladder push at him; it’s the same hollowed-out body experience he used to get when riding out of the gates. The certain expectation of world-ending.

No one alive knows that name.

At least, no one who he thought was alive knows that name. Gabriel. He hasn’t heard it aloud in half his lifetime. Even thinking it seems enough to incite immolation, to welcome and taunt for a beheading. Gabriel. His mother had made it a forbidden curse only to be invoked in the darkest of hours.

_“You were Gabriel first. Your father’s son first. He made you from parts of me. You are ours. Don’t ever forget that before Erwin there was Gabriel.”_

She’d been dying then. Consumption sucking her thin, robbing her of everything. Letters had been lost until it was almost too late, Erwin rushing from the Survey Corp to cry into her bosom. Her husband, The Baron, had watched and paced from the doorway as Erwin pleaded with an unmovable sickness in Goti – Gabi! His mother. Gabi. His Gabi. His Goti. _You were my Gabriel first._ Her smooth fingers on his cheeks, her palms sweating as he kissed them. _You look like Ewald._

He never saw her dead. He never saw her buried. He’d left, been shooed out, couldn’t be there too long, not even for his mother. **She** hadn’t wanted him there. She could…it all could have been – she could be alive.

Erwin stops walking, now somewhere backwards in town. He’s distantly aware that he’s shaking; birds move in a flush between rooftops, a humming of wings he thinks might be echoing out of the havoc’d chamber of his chest.

He’d told Levi that he’d be safe because logically, Erwin knows that this stalking figure in his shadow hasn’t come to kill him. Leave an ominous message, perhaps, a threat maybe, but injury? No. They wouldn’t have announced themselves. It isn’t anyone from the Police because they would have dragged him to a cell by now. It’s someone from this Horizon masquerade, that he’s sure of, come to seek him out. It’s whoever killed Donegal.

And that was so clearly a gift for him. A sign of peace, of good will. Or maybe just a way of cleaning house. They read about Donegal in Erwin’s journal, know what he’d done, and they’d killed him. For Erwin. When Erwin was publically engaged so that, no matter what, he could never be suspected.

But who else but someone who loved him would do that? And come for him like this?

He never saw his mother die.

The person comes to a stop closer than he’d expected, almost within arms’ reach. Erwin tries to keep his breathing down, even it out, but it sounds wild and harsh. He never saw his mother buried.

“Bet you weren’t expecting me, Pussy Willow.”

There’s a _please_ ready to drip from his lips when the fantastical illusion up-ends. Erwin whirls, boots splashing into a gutted patch of mud. Moonlight barely fits in this open crossroad between alleys, but it rests on his caller, nondescript and hidden in a heavy cloak. Erwin croaks, stunned, dredging up an automatic, long-trained and longer-lost nickname in response.

“Nettle thorn.”

The figure flips back the hood with a flourish, a laugh. A massive braid flops over her shoulder, curls barely gathered, so many burning wild around her face. A gap-toothed smile, a splash of pink lips peeking out from a shiny copper face that’s glowing and radiant and memorably ruined on the left side. One gold eye winks with pleasure, the other a familiar scarred-shut.

“Nellie!” Erwin gasps, truly dumbstruck, gaping with his arms spread like a target dummy welcoming a bolt. “Nellie Nettle Thorn. You’re dead!”

Light bends, night shifts, brightens, closes to this point. The woman, not the girl Erwin last saw years and years ago, laughs, wraps her arms around herself and laughs.

“I’m not. I’m not.” She shivers, eye wide and wet, flowing over with tears. She gasps, sucks in her own shocked ache. “I never died. I never died.”

Erwin leaps at her, swiftly lifting her into an almighty embrace that takes her far from the ground, spinning her and laughing through hot tears. “Nellie. Nellie. What the ever-loving hell – where did you – how –?”

She sobs into his shoulder, and Erwin can’t find a happy medium between shock and delight. He’s laughing loudly, cut up between crying. The grinning is winning over. Nellie’s chirping and calling him stupid, wrapping all of her limbs around him – god how she’s grown. How she’s lived and grown. Ghosts can’t grow.

“Who else would know to call you Gabriel?” she demands, pounding him on the back, trying to find the ground again with her toes. Erwin lets her down but doesn’t let go, squeezing her with all his might lest she vanish, lest she be one of the haunts that tickles his neck and lurks in the corners of his eyes. But she’s real. Her hair smells like oil and earth, making his lips feel kissed as he presses his quivering mouth to her scalp.

“I thought--,” he swallows. His mother died. “I don’t know what I thought.”

“Your mother switched us both when she found out you told me,” Nellie recollects, leaning back enough to look at him full on. Her cheek shines with tears but there’s a dimpled smile making her face round. Erwin’s cheeks ache with making one in return. Another delirious bout of laughter overtakes him. He closes his eyes and lets his forehead find her shoulder, spine gone wet and loose.

“Walls, Nellie, I thought you were dead. You were dead.”

She touches his hair, rubs her palm down the back of his neck. “I thought _you_ were the dead one. The Crown, police came for us, like all the rest. Shot it up. Nico, he fell atop me, bled out over me; they didn’t check hard enough. I got out once they lit the place on fire. I ran for a long time.”

Erwin groans, squeezing his eyes shut. Nico had been a friend. It would have been too much to ask for Nico to be alive too. They’d all been playmates, some of the only kids in the bunch. Nellie with her one eye and contagious smile had been the sympathetic endearing foil to Erwin’s cold calculations – if you were a stranger. They’d been a pack of trouble for all the adults. Nellie had been a fiery temperament and Erwin relatively docile. Nettle Thorn and Pussy Willow. Children with pet names. Children playing like puppies, kissing on the roofs, eavesdropping when they aught be in bed.

“I looked for you, I looked for anyone, when I transferred to Mitras. I tried to find survivors; I thought that if I had survived, maybe someone else had been lucky. But I couldn’t find traces of anyone I’d known.”

“I know,” Nellie says. “I read in your journal. I didn’t know that you were still on this earth until suddenly, your name was on everyone’s lips. Commander!” She titters. “Erwin Smith, the youngest Commander.”

“Why the secrecy, Nellie,” he questions, standing up to his height once more. He’d barebly had an inch on her when they’d last been together, thirteen, pock-marked. Now he loomed, and she couldn’t take her eye off his face. “Why not come sooner? And Donegal?”

She sneers. “What he did to you. _What you did to yourself._ You are Commander of the Survey Corp now, but with that I learned about the Police boy-bitch. I could hardly believe anything my ears heard about you, Pussy Willow. Your mother would never have let you do such a thing.”

“She never knew,” Erwin objects in a tight voice, throat swelling closed with emotion. Nellie snorts.

“She always knew everything.” There’s that Nettle Thorn temper, her callous quick words. She’s ready to gut and fight indiscriminately. But it isn’t dark enough for her not to see the hurt and the offense in Erwin’s face. She culls her own malice. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for her passing. She was a fierce woman.”

He nods. Nellie carries on, unwillingly to give an inch. “But I couldn’t be sure of who you were anymore, Erwin. I had to find out what sort of man you’d become. And I’m happy.” She presses her hands to his chest, beaming up at him. “You never gave up, you never gave us up. Look how far you've come all by yourself; they can’t kill us; they can’t stop us; we’re still here.”

Erwin picks her up again and she sags against him in relief. They hold each other quietly, both out of breath, catching themselves for the first time in years. The world feels new.

* * *

 

Levi isn’t out the door before Nile turns to Mike like he has the answers to all this.

“Are they always like that?” Nile asks, jerking a thumb at the empty space where Commander and Captain once were.

Mike shrugs, picking up his dented tankard. “They’ve been worse.”

Nile’s never seen them rolling around in the training yards, fighting and aching to be pinned, hoping the other was stronger, hoping they were stronger. Now that’s a sight. Mike closes his eyes – he’s seen them plenty worse. He himself has been plenty worse, with each of them. Fuck. He takes a guilty swallow, thinking of Levi’s feet again. He’s dirt; he’d love to be the ground beneath him – but then he couldn’t lift Nanaba into his arms.

Another guilty swallow. That’s a cadet he’s thinking about.

“What is with all of you,” Nile berates, leaning into the table.

“We’re all very busy enjoying not being dead,” Hanji explains, voice edged. They, as much as Levi, despise Nile. They, as much as Levi, hate the Military Police. “It’s a lot of work.”

Chana snorts into her drink gracelessly. “Don’t you know that the Survey Corp is all about liberation?”

“I do hope our Commander doesn’t get caught with his dick out in the streets,” Hanji continues, feigning stress. They pat their hand to their forehead, groaning in despair. “It’d really ruin our esteemed image.”

Hanji and Chana cackle, a couple of chicken heads. Mike rolls his eyes. “You’ve known Erwin long enough to know he has passions.”

Nile grunts, trouble pinching his lips. The care and concern blocking up his features surprises Mike. The Lieutenant Commander had rushed here baring conceivably ill news, a murdered brigadier, but it still struck Mike as an odd move on the man’s part. Nile Dawk hasn’t much been part of Erwin Smith’s life these past years. But he’d once been very dear. Mike can take a stab at how he and Erwin had been known to each other. Erwin had a way of ingratiating himself.

It’s an unkind thought.

“I’m simply surprised to see any of you in good spirit after your expedition.”

They all sober instantly, the light glee stricken from their faces.

“We mourn,” Hanji bites. They adjust their glasses, fingering the nose guard. “Don’t sit here and think you understand it or us or anything we do here.”

Mike sat between Nile and Hanji and wonders if he hadn’t if Hanji would have already started a physical brawl. For all his pride, Nile doesn’t rise to Hanji’s tone. In fact, he backs off, making peace with his empty palms.

“I’m not accusing you of anything,” he soothes. “I’m not…,” he opens and closes his mouth, struggling. “I watched Erwin sacrifice his life to the Corp. I don’t think lightly of you.”

It shuts them all up. Chana whispers something no doubt soothing into Hanji’s ear and reigns them back with a gentle hand on their arm. Hanji looks away, trembling, conferring secretly to Chana. Mike grunts and sits forward, surreptiously leaning his body between Nile’s line of sight with Hanji. He shakes his head slowly.

“Easy,” he advises. Nile crosses his arms and looks down at the chipped table. After a heavy minute of silence, Nile stands and makes his way to the keep, ordering them all new drinks. It’s a weak gesture but they won’t complain. They make do with what they get. That’s the Survey Corp way, Mike thinks.

It goes without saying that they toast to the newly dead. They pound their tankards on the table, heavy belting sounds. The last time they’d been out, Milo had been chattering in Mike’s ear. It makes him sick. How quickly life rolls forward. Nile could never understand. It’s not sudden death; it’s not even the number of dead. It’s the relentless repetition of dying. It’s counting on dying, on not seeing your friend again. They love life. That’s why they fight so hard.

But now they’re chewing on their beliefs, on the why the fuck have they signed themselves to such a cause.

“What’s this, did another person die?”

Levi drops down into his old seat looking distinctly vexed, twisted sideways in the chair. He doesn’t drink, and Mike’s sorry for him. They’re all two drinks deeper, heavy with it and a freshly morose atmosphere.

“No. We’re recollecting,” Mike says civilly. Levi doesn’t look like a man who’d had a good time. Consternation knits his brow, and he’s staring hard at nothing.

“The dead make me tired,” Levi mumbles, drawing his legs up and tucking his chin on his knees. “Don’t say anything to Erwin, when he comes back. He’ll be embarrassed – mixed company and all.” He shoots a pointed look at Nile, who looks irritated at the incrimination. Levi rolls his eyes, all white, settles them blankly on Mike.

“You can’t embarrass him,” Nile volunteers.

“You know,” Chana stirs, standing up. She doesn’t bother hiding the exhaustion on her face. She smiles wearily at Mike. “I think me and Hanji will go. We’re not in the mood anymore.”

Levi picks his head up and tilts it towards Hanji, frowning at them. Hanji scoots around Chana and goes to his side, leaning down to rest their forehead against his. In rarely seen, but often rumored affection reserved solely for Hanji, Levi tucks their bangs behind their ears and kisses them in the space between their brows, fixes their glasses, says something in a low voice.

Mike thinks it was: I’ll be home soon.

“I’ll wait up,” Hanji thanks, straightening up and patting Levi’s shoulder. They give a half-hearted wave. “Tell Erwin we’re sorry – or not. Hi Erwin. Commander. We’re leaving.” Hanji knocks off a salute as Erwin walks up to his disbanding cluster of officers. He’s frenzied but full looking, blinking and confused but distinctly energized. He looks like he had a good time and is trying to hide it.

“Oh? Alright. It is late. Perhaps we should all leave.” He looks around the room, distracted. There are a few Corp s soldiers scattered about in small clusters. They’d come and chattered throughout the night but not everyone wants to commiserate with their superior officers.

Nanaba isn’t among them. Mike’s never seen him out and feels stupid for not asking after him. There hadn’t been time. He hadn’t been hurt, Mike knew that much. In fact, when he saw Nanaba during the day, he’d never looked better, a rare thing for the day after an expedition; the boy had his chin held high and a new look of determination handsomely fixed on his face. The other cadet, Marli, the one everyone knew Nanaba had heroically saved, had been in different shape. Didn’t even make it to mess in the morning. Chana made sure she’d eaten, even if it took a long time to get it all down and keep it down.

Mike’s lost in his thoughts, wondering now if Nanaba will be awake, if he’d gone somewhere else, where he spent his time. Who with. Mike never sees him with anyone in particular. Boy’s a scrapper through and through, but he’s starting to look settled into the winged emblem a little more these days. He nearly misses it when Erwin smiles down at Levi, strokes a lazy loving hand over his hair, and Levi rolls himself up out of his chair, stepping off after Hanji.

“I’m taking them home,” Levi says curtly. He even salutes. Erwin’s hand hovers out, as abandoned as the smile falling from his face.

“I see,” he says simply, folding his hands behind his back, body drawing military straight and tall. He nods at his officers. “Until morning. Rest well.”

“Now that,” Nile whispers to Mike, “is not normal.”

Levi has his moods, has his ways, but there’s rarely a time when Erwin reacts with surprise. If they’d had a disagreement outside, Erwin wouldn’t have been so sure when he’d reached out. Mike hates to find himself agreeing with Nile, but it’s one of those nights. “Not particularly, no.”


	13. fingers crossed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mood : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EePkaW6pALY

It’s unusual for Hanji to carry a poor mood for very long, especially in the company of Levi. Despite how dour he appears, he generally sports a quick wit rife with dirty jokes and pick-me ups. But his distracted mood lends little to the ways of improvement, leaving Chana to host any spirited come-backs as both captains slump beside her, faces long and haggard.

“I need both of you to shape up because I am not funny enough or nice enough to tend your spirits before you sleep,” Chana eventually cajoles as way of healing. Levi snorts, and the sound is enough to crack Hanji’s gloomy façade. Well, damn, just slap her on the back and call her Queen of Humor because that did the trick.

“We’re here, hearts beating,” Levi offers.

“Praise to the tax payers,” Hanji cheers with a fist to the air. “Saints take me, I could do without Nile Dawk at my table.” Their hand flops down to their side, bumping Levi’s hip as they walk. “He came all the way here to tell Erwin that their old superior officer got murdered by the Horizon?”

“The Horizon?” Chana questions.

Levi flicks his gaze between both squad leaders. “So Erwin told you?” he asks. Fuck that Chana didn’t know and double fuck that she does now.

“Uh-huh.” Hanji nods their head rapidly. “Course he did. He and I are handling the whole revival problem.”

“The what now?” Chana prods, giving them both a scrutinizing look.

Hanji pauses in step, catching onto their drunken slip.  “Whoopsies.”

“Whoopsies,” Levi echoes dryly.

“Is this above me?” Chana guesses. She’s curious enough but she also values the limited dramatics of the Survey Corp between soldiers and within the chain of command. That’s the undisputed silver lining of this branch of the military.

“It’s above _me_ ,” Levi spits, kicking a rock, or a cold clod of shit. Either fit his mood.

“It’s…you know what, I’m off the clock,” Hanji waves the issue away. They lean back, bracing their hands on the rear of their hips to bend and crack their back, groaning open-mouthed with relief into the night. “I just want to be drunk and doing, I don’t know, something. Nile should have bought us more drinks; he makes great pay. Only a rich man would be audacious enough to have a beard like that.”

Levi honks out a laugh, caught off-guard but utterly pleased. The ungainly sound sends a weak Chana into a fit, and they all three make to the barracks in a good mood or the closest approximation of one attainable to wearied souls like themselves. He isn’t happy, but Levi puts up a good front now that he has some distance from Erwin to think. To put himself back together.  He hadn’t been close enough to hear whatever Erwin and that woman had been going on about, not after the initial clamor of Erwin’s surprise. His happiness had floated through the air, quickly smothered in secrets. That woman: Erwin had embraced her like a long lost piece of himself. Whoever she was, Levi knew she’d be back. Until then…

“What the fuck,” Chana exclaims. Her outcry cuts the breath from Levi, blanks his mind. He reaches for his favored dagger, stepping forward in front of his companions in the same motion that his he draws the blade free; it’s all for naught;  Chana’s more dumbfounded than on edge and Levi can see no threat coming their way. It takes a moment to catch what had caught Chana’s attention, but then he recognizes the streaking figure of someone running.

“Nanaba,” Chana sighs to her friends, standing with her hands on her hips, perplexed. “Not quite what I expected to see from him.”

Hanji makes a low thoughtful sound and nudges Levi who nudges back childishly.

“Makes sense to me,” Hanji observes under their breath. Levi hears; he cocks his ear their way for more but nothing comes. He sheathes his dagger under Hanji’s scrutiny. There’s been a sudden resurgence of knives in his life of late. Between Erwin’s jumpiness and his own, someone’s bound to get their throat slit. Hanji proceeds forward, undisturbed.

“Not curious?” Chana calls, switching her attention from her squad member to her fellow officer. Hanji flops a drunk hand in dismissal.

“They don’t like me, I don’t care to care. Let them run it off.” Hanji is past the point in their life of trying to make every Third their best friend. They do not have time for children who refuse to look their way even when they give orders.

Chana sighs heavily and rubs at her brow. Levi can see her struggling to sober up to deal with it. He touches her elbow.

“Mike’s behind us. Pass the kid off to him.”

“Twenty-two isn’t a kid,” Chana counters ruefully. They aren’t blind. They know the Lieutenant Commander has had his eye on Nanaba and will probably swipe the little hero for his own squad. Levi rebuttals with a flat look. Chana isn’t impressed but she is tired.

“If Nanaba wasn’t halfway around the barracks, _I would_ go drag him to bed. But sure, let the Lieutenant Commander deal with him.” She pokes Levi in his side, making him flinch, finding a new depth to his flat scowl. “But now Mike won’t be around for you to pass the Commander off onto –yes, Levi, we all saw you spurn Erwin back there. You two are a mudpit that no one with any sense wants to get near.”

“Thank you,” Levi grumbles bitterly.

Chana waggles her fingers at him in departure. “Have a good sleep. Kiss and make up promptly, won’t you? It’s the day after his first expedition.” The words are an unexpected slap in the face.

Levi would like to sleep, tonight and every other night of his godforsaken life. He’d very much like to fall into bed and dream of a world where he didn’t have to wake up and fight tooth and nail. He’d like to go to sleep with Erwin and spend the rest of their lives rolling into each other’s arms and let the only fight be for the blankets. Motherfucker, if Isabel and Farlan could see him now, stupid like this.

 He’s barely just begun to contemplate the conditions of his life when Mike, Erwin and Nile walk into view. If he has any doubts about conversing with Erwin tonight, it’s banished by the meaningful look Erwin sends his way. A war pounds in Levi’s chest. The sight of Erwin makes him ache; he wishes to throw himself at Erwin’s feet in submission, take anything and give everything; but the long learned and hard earned lessons of his youth, of this dim and killing world, advise him otherwise. He rankles with a suspicion he can barely suppress.

Nanaba isn’t to be seen, running a lap he has yet to round, when the trio closes in on Levi. He’s almost glad to be cut short of silent contemplation.

“Mike, your favorite is running himself ragged. Deal with it,” Levi informs briskly, stabbing a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of Nanaba’s whereabouts. Mike casts a sidelong look at Erwin, ever the loyal dog, before leaving with some mute permission granted to him. Levi and Erwin lock eyes.

“I’ll see myself to my room,” Nile insists, turning to Erwin to take his hand in brief acknowledgment. Nile and Erwin hug palms tightly. The unspoken words between those two, the heavy looks, it all disgusts Levi. He is disgusted.

“You look disgusted with me,” Erwin murmurs once he’s stepped beside Levi.

“I am disgusted,” Levi replies, but he walks in step with Erwin all the same, abandoning Mike to a duty he not so secretly craves.

* * *

 

When Levi said Nanaba was _running himself ragged_ , Mike hadn’t thought the boy was actually running. He nearly trips them both when he rounds the stables, following the sounds of – fast striking feet. Running. Indeed.

Nanaba shouts, twists and dodges, bolting past a stupefied Mike.

“Hey!” Mike shouts after.

“Busy!” is the insolent reply. Nanaba carries on, streaking into the night. Like a dog, Mike immediately kicks after him. His body startles itself by falling into form even after heavy drinking, but he’s fresher than Nanaba who Mike can smell sweating even in the cold air. Boy’s gonna catch his death like that.

“Nana, stop,” he tries again, even as his longer untired legs bring him onto Nanaba’s heels in no time. But Nanaba doesn’t have ears for listening tonight. He’s in perfect form, standing tall, hands pointed. He’s running hard and ragged; his gasping desperate breath sounds like cannon fire. He’s driving himself into the ground. Mike closes in on him with the intent to tackle, the only way to close the distance and trick the body into collision. It’s a near hit, but Mike isn’t so drunk as to not capably ensure Nanaba’s safety when he grapples the cadet into his arms and forcibly removes him from the earth. They swing together, a mess of kicking legs and anger and outcry. They hit the ground.

“What are you doing!” Nanaba screams. He’s painted red with exertion, sweat, dirty even. He’s wild, curls loose and flamed around his face, the stain of tears soft lit in the moon. Mike’s head throbs with pain from the impact of their fall. He’s stopped the running from nightmares mid-stride. But wouldn’t sleep be the better healer? If sleep should come. Saints, it’s only the day after the mission. Nana and Chana’s whole squad had nearly drowned in the remains of Milo. Had Nana seen him? They’d be pulp. They’d be so sorely dead.

“I’m sorry,” Mike apologizes. He’s staring up at Nana like the moon, like a curse. He’s sorry. Should have let him run himself to death, let him sleep the ache all the way through the night.

Nanaba’s panting, open-mouthed, small teeth showing. He’s wide-eyed, enraged – softening, sitting back on Mike’s hips and gripping his shirt, Mike’s cloak all thrown open underneath him. Night air closes in around Mike, cold bite a pack of wolves.

“I was – running,” Nanaba growls, smacking Mike’s hard taught stomach. It doesn’t hurt. It barely ripples through him. Nanaba quakes atop him, body pulling apart. His heart; Mike can feel the quickfire of his heart surging.

“I realize.” Mike stops himself from reaching, from touching. He wants to put his hands on the shaking of Nana, on the shiver of his bones. He doesn’t. He doesn’t know where to put his hands. He leaves them flung out from the fall.

“Then why,” Nanaba’s pinched, god, he might even hit Mike by the look of it. His eyes are still wild, shot through. In a fit, Nanaba slaps Mike on the chest, shrieking through clamped teeth. Again and Again – a hiccup and gasp—he's crying.  His pained face falls open. “Why’d you stop me.”

Mike hits his limit. He sits up and embraces Nanaba, deft and hard, tucks him close. For all his fight and flame, Nanaba crumples into Mike’s broad chest, burrows down into the coveting embrace, the curl of his shoulder.  Mike should have left him be. “You can’t run from it.”

“I know,” Nanaba wails, near incoherent. He’s sobbing wretchedly, ugly in it. He’s small. It sounds like the first he’s cried since the Gates sealed up behind them. “I know.”

Mike rubs his back through it, sitting there in the dirt. He tries to cover Nanaba with his cloak, wrap him up. It’s a half-done gesture. The pitch of Nanaba’s crying breaks, rises, gurgles. He bites Mike’s shoulder, sucking in air like he’s being strangled, huffing and hot and terrible. Mike rubs his back.

A silence falls. Nanaba bites harder, groaning before the release. “I know,” Nanaba struggles to say, gasping between the words. He’s groaning low and constant with suppression. Mike wants to say – cry! Cry all you must! This is how the heart bleeds. Had he not made Erwin’s shoulder a well last night, missing a friend he bet would die the first time they ever shared a joke? Hanji’s grim face: _We mourn._

“I’m not…I’m not running from…anything,” he struggles on, taking a huge breath. He sits, hugging Mike, pulling himself together in the process. He takes part of Mike too; healing; threads of him. They weave together; it’s a firing. Mike slides his arms around Nanaba’s waist and exhales into his hair, breathes it back. “I’m training.”

“At this hour?” Mike questions, the chastisement plain. Nanaba shrugs a shoulder into Mike’s chin. Mike runs his nose along the hard shape.

“Can’t sleep.”

“That, I know.” The earth isn’t splitting or cracking. This isn’t revelation, this isn’t revolution. Mike cradles Nanaba’s skull in the clutch of his swordman’s hand and thinks about how their bodies are sold to certain death. No way in hell will they make it out alive. What miserable lives.

“Yeah,” Nanaba croaks, trying to laugh. He rolls his face against Mike’s chest and shoulder conspicuously, wiping away snot and tears; Mike lets him do what he must, sniffing and huffing himself to clarity. “I had a thought.”

Mike waits eagerly; he’s hooked. He’s an idiot. He’s burning up right there, praying to any divinity that’ll listen to please not let him see Nanaba die. It’s fruitless. He knows. He thought he knew better. _How in the name of Humanity do Erwin and Levi do it?_ That: that he will never understand. Those two, they fell in deep. A spray of lucky knuckle bones. They’re a wish-bone promise.

Nanaba heaves a great big sigh and shifts backwards, spread out over Mike’s lap. He scrubs his face with the back of his hand, scrapes the cuff of his shirt – not even his cloak on – across his eyes and nose, over his raw mouth. Licking and panting his lips while running has chapped them raw.

“I was thinking,” he goes on to say, “about the fruitlessness of change within these Walls.” He’s staring hard at Mike without really seeing him, earnest but caught in the organization of his thoughts. “The Commander talks about how our future lies beyond the Walls, and he’s right. And you – about this as a place for the discontent. That discontent is bigger than the Crown and Law and the Walls. For Thirds,” his mouth twists, brief and struggling until he seems to tear himself away from the emotions, “for Thirds, we have been compounded with Titans. As long as Titans eat people and ensnare Humanity, no one will see us different. The rare few. People like you, and the Commander, and some of the other officers here. And some people on the street. But our body, my body, it’s demonized. It’s misunderstood. I’d like to think my kind of body came before Titans, but fuck if anyone wants to find out. We don’t know our history anymore, I’m not stupid, I know what a book burning is. Captain Zoe talks about that all the time.  I don’t think that anything can change until the real source of fear is eliminated or understood. And. And. And I came here, joined the Survey Corp – not for good reasons. I don’t know. I wanted to fight or die or prove that I wasn’t a Titan. But now I want to be a soldier for the possibility of this world changing. I don’t think it will or that I can, right now. But if we actually won – and with Captain Levi, with you and the Commander – Commander Smith, he’s really something. Hanji Zoe. I know Hanji Zoe is brilliant. I do. I do know that. I don’t know. I think we can do it; maybe not me, I’ll die. But I think…I think it can happen.”

They finish in a hurried flush, still out of breath but no longer losing themselves to a rapid quest for air. Mike stares. He can’t help it. Nanaba searches his eyes, expression demanding. When Mike keeps staring, mute and dumbstruck, he shoves slighting at Mike’s chest.

“Well?”

“Yes!” Mike can only exclaim, clasping Nanaba. “Yes, Saints, Nanaba, yes. It’s terrible, isn’t it, that that’s the path we must take – but I’m so proud. I’m so,” Mike cups his cheeks, grinning, struck. Erwin will be thrilled to hear, as painful and grim as some parts are, of the mind of his soldiers. “We fight together,” is all Mike can think to say. This is exactly why he’s here. There is no justice, no Humanity, until Humanity reaches all.

“Yeah?” Nanaba chuckles in relief, leaning forward until his forehead meets Mike’s. His skin is cold; he’s cold, all chilled sweat. Mike swallows. He’s supposed to be getting this wayward soldier inside, to bed.

“We fight together,” Mike repeats, drawing his hands back, off Nanaba, like would-be weapons. He digs his fingers into the dirt. That’s a safe place for his hands. Dirt. Not curly hair. Not a slender waist or even sharp elbows. “I’ll be fighting beside you.”

There’s just enough moonlight to strike gold in Nanaba’s eyes, unfinished, raw. Mike and Nanaba puff breath together; spring’s come warm enough that nothing shows of their living in the air. Mike doesn’t need to see his exhales drawn into the cavern of Nanaba’s mouth to know he’ll be tasting them. One of them leans in first but it doesn’t matter in the meeting of lips. Nanaba gasps at the first slip-lock and Mike loses control of his hands, has them in that burden of hair, hot and sweaty at the base of his neck: tangles, nails over scalp. He draws Nanaba flush. Nanaba gasps, breathless. They part lips to meet eyes; Nanaba’s stunned smiling, Mike’s speared through.

“Well,” Mike starts, “I can’t say that I wasn’t—mmph.”

Nanaba shuts him up rather forcefully with a slip of the tongue. Mike makes another attempt to blanket Nanaba in his cloak to little success but this time Nanaba whines for the warmth, sliding closer, a sweet cleft of ass –

“Nana.”

“Yes?”

“The cold.”

“You’re warm.”

Mike can’t help but laugh. “C’mon,” he urges, trying to find his legs and pick Nanaba up. He has a mind of his own, slipping off Mike’s lap to plop embarrassed on ground. They whoop when Mike hauls him to his feet and shoves him forward. “Inside, get dry and warm.”

Nanaba laughs, unsettled, pulling on his hair. “Oh shit oh shit oh—saints. _Lieutenant Commander._ ”

Mike catches him, tugging him into his space and kissing his forehead, smoothing back his hair. “Mike. Michael, if you mean business. Outside of duty, Nana, speak plainly to me.”

“Oh, shit,” Nanaba repeats, dropping his head to Mike’s shoulder. “Mike.”

* * *

 

There’s a detour to Hanji and Levi’s room. Levi pushes Erwin against the wall outside, rank stripped, but Erwin Smith knows better than to play to Commander tonight. He stays, pinned up to the wood. It’s not a quick visit, but he isn’t stupid. Levi’s in a mood; don’t wonder off.  He can barely make out Hanji’s muffled voice from inside the private quarters; it prompts him to the door a few times. He’s supposed to watch out for Hanji. He promised his mother.

“Your room,” Levi commanders sharply upon his exit. He presses Erwin against the wall, slim fingers under this throat. Erwin treats them like a blade. Levi eyes Erwin’s stiffness, his reticence, and snorts, tugging on the bolo tie playfully. “Our room.”

Erwin hums considerately. “Our room,” he agrees, following on Levi’s heels. “So are you still disgusted?”

Levi turns his head over his shoulder, look flashing like a broken bottle. “I’m _aghast_.”

“I really can’t tell,” Erwin whines, following Levi into _their_ room. It’s cold. No one’s been around to start the stove. Levi doesn’t kiss him at the threshold or offer him any more indication of his disposition. He simply takes off his cloak, moves about the room like it is theirs. Erwin just wished he wasn’t waiting for some clue, some signal. No one had indicated to him that Levi had left, but it’s entirely possible that he _had_ , that he’d followed Erwin and seen Nellie, heard any scrap of that conversation. “Levi? You’re mysterious charming self is not sufficient to…relax me, tonight.”

“Your _dear old friend_ has fouled up Hanji good tonight.” Levi’s boot hits the floor. Then the next. He kicks them under Erwin’s big, splendid Commander’s bed with a clatter. “What do we talk about first: the Horizon murdering your old superior officer, Nile Dawk riding to your rescue, what the fuck is that about, and  I only found out your last lover is _his wife_. Or, my personal favorite: that you were a captain in the Military Police. Damn, I learned _a lot tonight_ , Erwin, and none of it was from you.”

Erwin croaks, backed up against his door. He scrapes his nails over the wood, trying not to let the relief show on his face. This, _that_ , he can handle. “Levi, I know what you’re like when you’re trying to kill me—talking about my history in the Military Police doesn’t entice me.”

“It entices me,” Levi says brusquely. He leans forward, elbows on knees, fingers laces and chin on the bridge of them. Erwin doesn’t think he can move from his spot with that blade-sharp stare cutting him to shreds. But still, somehow, he’s breathing easing. He’s smiling, to Levi’s confusion. Nellie safe. She’s safe. She’s alive and safe and _the Horizon is real_. He can bare a few more twists of the truth to keep Levi out of harm’s way.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't fret about loose ends here.
> 
> thank you for reading. i love comments and feedback. this story is so fun to write. you can find me on tumblr @ stillmadaboutpetra.tumblr.com
> 
> prepare yourself for so much Nellie and Horizon now.


	14. wish bone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4Rhn04dpCA
> 
> possible tw: normalized physical altercation between erwin and levi.

Erwin pushes off the door to hang up his cloak. Levi’s quiet; the swish and rustle of fabric carries loudly through the room.  

“Where do you want to start?” Erwin asks, considering himself doomed and lucky in one fell swoop. He’s just glad he had the foresight to tell Nellie that’d they’d meet tomorrow night in town.

“Chronologically.”

“Then when I enlisted with the Police, I suppose.”

“I knew you were a horned bastard,” Levi spits – he can’t help himself. Erwin sighs loudly, wind of his lungs scraping through his teeth.

“And this is precisely why I never told you. I ask nothing about your past, Levi, and yours is far worse by comparison.”

“How sweet. Is this how honesty sounds coming out of your mouth?” Levi leans back on Erwin’s bed, crossing his legs and tilting his chin up in challenge. He doesn’t sound mad or even offended. Peeved, yes, but distantly amused. Erwin snorts unattractively, turning to him and approaching slowly. He might get kicked. Levi’s loose now compared to the tavern; his foot is bouncing rapidly; his eyes are locked and unflinching, a little too wide with focus. He’s trying hard to make this happen.

“Yes. Do you like it? I learned it along with a sense of justice and duty from my service in the Military Police.” Erwin makes to sit on the bed; he isn’t surprised that Levi holds him at bay with his foot pressed against his stomach. Erwin licks his lips, curiously titillated. He takes Levi’s foot into hand, cradling it, lifting it to kiss at the ball of his foot. The motion stretches Levi’s groin, one of Erwin’s favorite places to stretch Levi.

Levi’s lip curls, his eyebrow quirks. “Please, you learned how to suck cock and screw over innocent people,” he sniffs, quietly permissive of Erwin’s playful worship.

Erwin bites on Levi’s toes. “And get screwed. Let’s not limit my objectification to purely cock sucking.”

The words have their desired effect. Levi blinks, face slowly blanking. Erwin peels off Levi’s sock and lowers his foot to rub his thumbs into the arch, gaze patient as Levi considers the truth of his statement.

“I joined because I wanted access to power. I thought that I could change a system I saw as unjust, and I believe is unjust even now. I ingratiated myself and climbed the ranks.”

“Whored,” Levi says mildly. Erwin nods, removed from the dramatics of the subject. He drops to his knees; Levi sits up sharply, trying to tug his foot away, but Erwin yanks him to the edge of the bed, hoists Levi’s knees over his shoulder.

“Did you ever?” Erwin asks, resting his cheek on Levi’s thigh. Levi works his jaw, the bolt jumping. He runs his fingers through Erwin’s hair.

“Yeah.” Levi pets Erwin’s eyelashes next, expression shuttered. Erwin hates the look, the implication, but there’s nothing to be done for the past. Isn’t that the lesson here? You do what you must to get to where you need to go. Levi clicks his tongue. “Donegal, I assume?”

“Yes, sir,” Erwin nods. He kisses Levi’s fingertips. He could have told Levi sooner. Ah. All of his history wants to break the surface of this life now. What a pain in his ass. He liked it dead. He thinks he liked it dead. It’s alive now. “Nile found out, after we’d finished serving together. He came to tell me today about Donegal getting murdered because he knew I’d be…less than upset.” Levi keeps stroking his hair, listening intently, letting Erwin divulge. “Marie was a woman we knew, a rich pretty girl. You’d laugh at me if you could have seen me playing gentleman caller to her. I was going to marry her until I transferred to the Survey Corp. Nile always liked her, and with me gone he was able to make his move.”

Levi runs a finger down Erwin’s nose, rubbing the bump and faint scar from when it’d been broken years ago. It tickles. Erwin wrinkles and scrunches it up. He finally has to bat Levi’s hand away when he tries to prod his nostril. Pest. He kisses Levi’s palm and releases him to spend his attention taking off Levi’s other sock and tickle his ankles.

“So why’d you transfer?” Levi asks.

_My Mother._

“It was a practice in futility. I’d made a mistake, bartering what I couldn’t keep giving. You must understand. While it was common practice, to my knowledge, it’d created an image that backfired. I was a fool, young and stupid. Besides, policing is symptomatic of a greater problem. The Crown is corrupt, the nobles. No one was interested in listening to me in that branch. But the Titans; they we can fight. If we understand them, we unlock the whole world. If we can’t get to the world, we’ll never be able to sustain ourselves long enough to bother with the Humanity inside these Walls. It was a change in perspective and goals.”

“A tactical decision.” Levi tugs gently on Erwin’s ear. “Come up here. Stop flagellating on the floor. I hate that look on you unless you’re naked. Up.”

Erwin rolls his eyes but stands. “Being naked has done a lot of good for me.” 

“Saints, you’re much.” Levi slides his hands around Erwin’s waist, keeps him in the open spread of his legs and rests his head on Erwin’s stomach, looking down between them. “Okay, Erwin. Thank you.” He lifts his face up and rests his chin on Erwin. Good, he’s so good. Erwin cups his cheek, grateful. This is fine, here, Levi’s fine. If he has Levi and he’s fine, the Corp will be fine.  “Thanks for telling me all that shit.”

“I didn’t know you were curious about anything,” Erwin admits. “I’d hardly leave the job of enlightening you on my past to Nile if I’d known. Did he say anything tonight, while I was clearing my head, that’s worth repeating?”

Levi shrugs, nonplussed. His gaze skates away. “No, nothing other than how much he wants to fuck you.”

“So his usual banter. I’ll talk to Hanji tomorrow. I hope they sleep well.” Erwin scrubs his hand over his face. He knows he won’t be able to sleep tonight, his heart’s still racing from Nellie’s appearance, but Levi’s hang-dogged. He needs to sleep, but if Erwin isn’t there to keep him in bed, to make Levi even _try_ to sleep, then he’ll be restlessly wandering the halls. Erwin can’t have Levi in any worse shape tomorrow. “What happened with Mike and, who, was it Nanaba?” he distracts, finally now moving away from Levi to wash up at the basin.

“Not sure,” Levi hums. Maybe Mike will find a bit of happiness tonight. God only knows someone in this godforsaken shithole deserves it. Levi flops back on the bed and watches Erwin from upside down. Erwin’s staring hard at the mirror, ramrod stiff. He’s not moving, but he’s clutching the edge of the dresser, the stress in his body showing in stilted quakes, his eyes fixed on something in the reflection. Levi looks around the room: nothing. “Erwin?”

Erwin doesn’t look.

“Erwin?” Levi swallows. “Erwin? Hey!”

Erwin jumps, sucking in a breath. He rocks, flinching and tucking his body into itself –shakes himself out. “Sorry?”

“Hey,” Levi murmurs, twisting over and sliding off the other side of the bed to land at Erwin’s side. He makes a lot of noise for a rare change, comes from a good angle for Erwin to watch the approach. Erwin does, eyes pointed at Levi but they don’t seem to focus. “You’re right here, safe.”

“I know,” Erwin nods. He reaches for his jaw and rubs the left-sided ache. Levi hums and follows his hand, touches it too. “I’m here.”

“We’re all alive,” Levi comforts. He’s been ready for this, fuck everything else going on. This is the aftermath rolling in like the fog. This is his Commander. “The mission’s over. We’re inside the Walls. I’m here.”

Erwin folds his hand over Levi’s and presses so Levi’s fingers feel the crack and empty in his face. This is his Captain. “Thank you, Levi. I know. If you’re not up in arms, there’s nothing to fear.” He smiles at the thought. God, he drew a blade on Nile just about. The drama was worth the sight. “And if you are brawling, I’m safe, hm? You’ll protect me?”

Levi salutes against Erwin’s chest. He double taps, fist solid as a sword, right in time with Erwin’s heart. “Always. Always, Erwin. You don’t have to do anything alone.”

Erwin smiles down at him, charmed. “I know.”

“Do you?” Levi presses. He stares up at him with a tight jaw. “Do you know that I’d be there for you, whatever it is?”

Erwin’s heart speeds against Levi’s fist. It’s too meaningful, and Levi rarely stirs sentiment like that. He prefers the unspoken allegiances. He's pushing for Erwin to read between his words, opening an opportunity. Erwin's never been a lucky man. Levi knows. He followed him to Nellie. They played out this whole conversation, and Erwin should have suspected it more from the beginning. Levi’s gotten good under his skin. He knows the way to slip in and out of Erwin’s guards. Lover. His lovely lover. And Erwin lied his way through it, caught himself in his own web. Stupid, presuming. _Think before you speak, Erwin,_ his mother would scold. And Levi, so fucking earnest. Pest. Dog. Too damn loyal for his own good.

 “Why can’t you make this easy?” Erwin groans, searching the ceiling for a way out. He’s swollen with anger. His hands drop from Levi; it's hardly the response a lover would want. Or a captain.

“Why is this the archive room all over again!” Levi snarls, shoving away to storm to the door. Both of  their tempers set off, lashing out and catching fire. “You, y-y-you, lying to me.”

“I can’t have secrets?” Erwin shouts, following him across the room. Levi tries to open the door but Erwin slams it shut, crowding him against it. It is the archive room again. He makes the same mistake of touching Levi when he clearly doesn’t want it. Erwin holds his stomach where the punch landed; Levi darts around him. “Don’t go out the window, Levi.”

“Fuck you,” Levi shouts back, just as loud. Neither of them bother to check the volume of their outrage. They never have. They never will. Levi opens the window; Erwin drags him away. They kick their way to the bed and go down, scrapping wildly. “Manipulative fucker.”

“Don’t act surprised,” Erwin scoffs even as he dodges Levi’s fist again, grappling to pin his wrists. Levi isn’t pulling any hits. That knee in his side is going to bruise. It hurts, he’s already sore from the strain of gear on his body. “How else did you end up here?”

“I believed in you!” Levi rears up and hits his forehead into Erwin’s, jarring him enough to throw him off the bed; Erwin hits the ground in a heap. “Idiot! How are you so fucking stupid sometimes. I swear to all Saints, I never thought I’d be taken for a loon to love you.” Erwin gets to his hands and knees. Levi kicks him down onto his side and tackles him.

“Levi,” Erwin grits, rolling him over. “Would you listen for once? Be good and listen to me when I tell you to not fucking follow me or—”

“I’m not a dog!” Levi bites his arm, digging his teeth into Erwin’s bicep. Erwin roars, slams him into the ground and bites his shoulder back just as hard, at the juncture of his neck. He likes to put kiss marks there. He bites until Levi cries out, hips kicking up into Erwin’s. Levi’s cock is hard; it’s not a shock. Erwin’s is too. Their legs tangle as Erwin works to press all his weight onto Levi to pin him still.

Erwin releases the throbbing flesh from his teeth and bites again at his neck, once, twice, up to Levi’s ear. Levi hisses, tries to throw him off, but that’s always been Erwin’s advantage. If he gets his weight on Levi, there’s little to be done. A body is just a body, Levi or not. His dagger’s gone, put away with his cloak. “Maybe you should be!”

He stretches Levi’s arms out, makes them useless. He digs his legs overtop Levi’s, makes them useless. Levi thrashes; Erwin bares it with clenched teeth. It feels good. “Listen to me. Obey me.”

It’s a lightning strike. Erwin didn’t expect anything to come out of the words. They usually fight till they fuck. That’s half the fun. Instead, Levi falls silent and dreadfully still. Even his breathing cuts off. Erwin relaxes the ironclad grip he has on Levi’s wrists, but no retaliation comes. It doesn’t come either as Erwin eases up, suspicious but concerned. Levi never gives up in a fight. It’s anathema. “Levi. Stop it, sit up.”

Levi lays like a dead man on the floor, flung out, face turned away. His neck is a red mess of bite marks; it looks like they made love. No. It looks far worse than that. Erwin swallows past guilt and sits back between Levi’s legs, breathing roughly, sweating. The blood’s rushing in his ears. “Sina’s tits, Levi. Don’t do this right now,” Erwin leans over him, intending to drag him to his feet.

The slap strikes, snake fast. Erwin’s cheek flames hot, instantly thick-fleshhed, eye socket jarred. It’s insulting where it isn’t terribly painful. Erwin’s forehead will show more damage than this. But to be slapped; he hangs his head like he’s been shot.

“Don’t you dare compare me to an animal,” Levi seethes. He’s sitting up, baring teeth against the side of Erwin’s face. “Don’t you dare let thoughts of me as anything less than a man even enter your fucking brain, Erwin Smith, or I swear on my mother’s fucking ashes, I will disappoint your low, shitty, expectations beyond your wildest, shittiest, imagination.”

At the slow open of Erwin’s mouth, the flash of a tongue trying to form an apology, Levi slaps him again.

“There’s a difference between obedience and loyalty. Decide what you want from me before you open your mouth,” Levi warns.

Erwin squeezes his eyes shut to keep himself from seeing anything he doesn’t want to see. He knows what he’ll see if he opens them. He can’t. “May I ask a question of clarification?”

Levi slaps his other cheek, enough to sting but not throb. “As long as it isn’t stupid.”

 _Mother would have liked Levi._ In another life, Levi would have been scooped up from the ghetto and brought into one of the cobbled-together families that populated the Horizon network. Erwin could have fallen for him sooner, younger. But Levi would have been killed and burned, like the others.

“Are you speaking as my Lover or as my Captain?” He can’t keep the tremble of fear out of his voice. It surprises him, how he tried to quell it but it persists. Erwin can feel himself falling apart. Levi’s cut the sutures on his scars; blood’s running; guts are spilling.

Levi’s hand is slow on his cheek this time, soft again, hiding the red stain he’d made.

“Both,” Levi says solemnly. He slides his fingers down Erwin’s cheek, his neck, hooks his finger on the leather cord of his Commander’s bolo tie; it dangles, heavy and swinging. Erwin forgets that it’s there already, even after only a few weeks of bearing its fresh burden. He doesn’t open his eyes to watch Levi cradle it in his palm. It’s a sick play on the crooning entreaty that’d drawn Erwin in with a low guard. “Captain Levi won’t desert his Commander. He’ll still be the same shitty soldier—“

“You’re a great soldier,” Erwin interrupts. Levi clucks his tongue and tugs on the cord. Erwin bows his head further. He’s close to kissing the floor. Levi hates when he self-flagellates but when he does it…

“I’m good at killing Titans. I’ll kill Titans till they kill me, all the live long day. That’s not gonna change. But something’s gotta change. Tonight, Erwin.” The tension on the cord increases. It’s a hot wire around Erwin’s neck. A curl of knuckles nudges Erwin’s jugular. “I know you love me, Erwin…but how you’re loving me lately…” Levi tries to keep it stern but his voice catches on the end. He rips his hand from the bolo tie like the talisman has burned him.

“Oh Saints, Levi,” Erwin gasps, tilting forward. He’s the one struck by lightning, burned through at the core. He’s too lucky when Levi accepts him, becomes a cradle and a well. They roll backward, Levi embracing with his arms and his legs, imprisoning the tremble of Erwin’s body. Obedience is nothing to this, to Levi as the man he is who is capable of fighting beside Erwin because he’s able to fight Erwin first. His conversion from criminal to captain hadn’t been an act of obedience; it’d be a meeting of souls. “Loyalty. I want your loyalty. Everything you’ve given me, I want. Don’t change. I—I’m sorry. You’re right. I’ve been –I don’t know, Levi. And I can’t—I can’t,” he chokes off. He’s smudging tears into Levi’s shirt, beneath the collar. He can’t open his eyes. Levi makes it so he doesn’t need to because he holds Erwin smotheringly close.

“I don’t know what to do when you cry,” Levi mumbles. His best attempt at comfort is to hug Erwin harder and stroke his hair.

“I know,” Erwin says wetly. “I’m not.”  He’s losing it. It’s all falling apart. He worked so hard to get here and even Levi is questioning him now. Seeing through him.

“Breathe,” Levi puffs into his ear. He drops his voice low, letting it crawl out of his throat like thunder, summer storm rolling in from beyond the Walls. “Breathe, Erwin. I’m not going anywhere. Breathe.”

“I’m well,” Erwin pants, teeth nicking Levi’s collarbone. One big breath in, one out. He forces himself away, pushing all the way off Levi and getting to his feet with a stumble. His head swims and his vision grays out but he stands tall. Levi lifts up onto his elbows, still splayed out on the floor, peering up through messy bangs, mouth thin with skepticism.

“Unquestionably,” Levi drawls.

Erwin clears his throat and offers him a hand up; their palms smack loudly when they meet. Both of them squeeze; their callouses scuff and catch on one another. Over the past two years, Levi’s hands have changed. The hilt of the sword rubbed his palm raw the first month of heavy training. He has less split knuckles, less new knife nicks. More shoe polish and gear oil. Smoke black tea perfuming his wrists. Erwin flexes his arm and with a yank, has Levi all the way on his feet. He tries to tug him into an embrace but Levi puts his hands out, stopping the motion. The gem of the bolo glares bluely.

“Levi…,” Erwin entreats. He skates his hands down Levi’s sides, touching his narrow waistline, the harsh ridge of his hipbones.

Levi’s hands flex and seize on his chest, trying to recall how he used to wear talons and go preying in alleys. He looks up, still wild from their fight, mouth packed full of storm. “Don’t try and act sweet with me, Blondie.”

Erwin rolls his lips tight into his mouth, humming loudly. He retracts his touch broadly, raising empty hands in supplication. Levi’s brow twitches but he steps back too. They retreat. Levi goes to the bedside drawer and roots out Erwin’s cigarette case, taking one and throwing it across the room at Erwin to snatch before it can hit him in the face.

“Haven’t heard that name in a long time,” Erwin says lightly. Levi took the last cigarette. Erwin’s chest bounces in silent laughter. Of course he did.

“Yeah, well, I could call you fuck knows worse. I still might.” Levi lights his cigarette, flicks out the match. He stands smoking, staring off blankly at the bed. Their bed. He rests a hand on his hip, cocks himself, inhaling deeply but letting the smoke whisper from his nose; he’s a house burning down. He smokes like it’s gonna save his life. “Blondie’s cute. Thought you were cute even when I planned to slit your throat. Oh, _damn_ ,” Levi crows, gesturing sharply with his cigarette, a cutting motion in the air, “you know, Blondie _might_ be the worse I can call you. It’s bringing back all those old, exciting feelings only you stir up in me.”

“I thought you loved me and wouldn’t leave me,” Erwin queries without concern, crawling across the bed to steal away the cigarette. Levi gives it over with a narrow look.

“I do and I won’t. I’d like to slap you again if it’d do any good.”

“Maybe later, when I’ve unburied my past,” Erwin says easily. His head’s light. The tobacco is a little stale. His better cigarettes are in his jacket pocket, he recalls belatedly. “I might like it more.”

“Talk fast,” Levi advises. He drops down onto the bed beside Erwin and holds out his hand for the cigarette. Erwin passes it back to him. He’d like to be on the roof, under the sky. But it could be worse.

Where to begin?

“The letter,” Erwin considers aloud; yes, that’d been the introduction of the real lying, the point of Levi’s growing suspicions. “In the archival room.”

“You write it to that lady? Your Nettle Thorn,” Levi guesses, mouth quirked around the nickname, eyes blazing. So now they’re both freely admitting their mutual deceits. Erwin guffaws at the erroneous presumption on Levi’s part. Truly, Levi knows nothing! He’s baseless, grasping wildly. He’s all instinct, no fact. It’s both reassuring and calamitous. Erwin’s been undone by his bedmate who has so little idea of the depth of the matter.

“The letter you discovered was written to me, not by me,” Erwin corrects. His chest gasps open, sudden agush with blood and air, heart throbbing and his veins plumping and pistoning through his body as an electric arousal passes through him. “From my mother.”

“Mother?” Levi sounds, face furrowed, ravines perplexed between his narrow brows. Passing remakes may be made about his father, but Erwin never speaks of his mother. Levi dares not ask, for he holds his own mother in tight loving secrecy. Save to swear upon her ashes.

“Yes. My mother.” and Erwin can’t help smiling, grim scythe of teeth flashed broadly. “I don’t know why I didn’t receive it normally; she wrote so only I could decipher her hand and thus we shared little fear on the matter of sending mail by courier to me following my joining the Military Police. I think now that she must have tried to use a liaison because she’d mentioned taking in a Third child.”

Speaking now casts a rapturous spell over Erwin. It’s splendid, to speak of his mother, to speak of her to Levi. They would have loved each other. She would have been pleased with Levi; a criminal, a killer, a seething man of rage and heart, all blood fury. Levi would have been in awe of her; Levi loves women like his mother. Of course: how could he not. And they would have loved through Erwin’s body, and he’d feel them both.

“What?” Levi asks flatly, deciphering Erwin’s tangles. “Your mother’s letter to you when you were in the Police ended up archived among the Horizon files…because she was in the Horizon?” Levi tips his head, finding that broken angle that he likes so much, says feels good, makes him look shaken and dead. Erwin takes the cigarette from his poised hand, lips hovering warmly around the kiss Levi’s left behind on the damp end. “And what—you were infiltrating the police for her? Fuck reworking the justice system, you were there for espionage?”

“Vengeance,” Erwin corrects, voice mild, hollow with distant and failed recollection. “I sought to assassinate the people who had tortured and murdered my father and massacred my friends. I wanted to kill the King and everyone near him.”

The moment after Erwin’s pronouncement stretches on; Levi stares mutely; Erwin does nothing but smoke the cigarette down, filling the room with a shimmering haze. Ash crumbles onto the wooden floorboards. It’s when Erwin taps it off that Levi twitches, coming to a decision. He lurches to the bedside table to yank open the drawer and rummage.

“Where’s your—,” Levi starts.

“My other tin is in my cloak pocket,” Erwin aids. Levi curses quietly and slips off the bed to retrieve it from Erwin’s winter cloak. Small hands disappear into deep pockets, fur-lined and warm. The sight of them makes Erwin’s cheek throb, his forehead ache. The metallic slide and click of the case opening and shutting keeps Erwin from sliding off into far-away thought.

Levi tugs Erwin’s cloak on around himself, drowning in it. He flips the hood up, cowl too big too, swallowing him whole. He prowls back to Erwin, a rolling rippling shape in the moonlight. They never even turned on a lamp.

“I should light the woodstove.” Erwin attempts to rise from the bed. Levi pushes him down, firm hand on his shoulder, and slides into his lap, cloak flaring out. The heat of Levi’s body makes the room that much colder. His thighs flex and jump as he adjusts himself to comfort. The arrangement won’t last long before Levi’s knees start aching, but it’s grounding, reassuring. They light two new cigarettes off the dying one in Erwin’s hand, eyes meeting over the catch and spread of fire.

“You’re some other kind of crazy, aren’t you, Blondie,” Levi judges, dragon smoke from his nostrils, eyelids droopy and lazy, but the dark of them is wide and flashing. Levi’s got the neat lines of killing edged under his eyes. When Erwin holds his gaze, smoking halfway into Levi’s mouth, Levi swallows, darts his eyes around the room and lets them slip over Erwin’s shoulder and rest on the windowpanes reflecting two swimming blurs of red, the blots of a twin-bodied figure. “Start from the real beginning: your father and mother.”

“I was born Gabriel Klein, son of Ewald and Gabi Klein…”

He’s never made himself vulnerable before. The first time he slept naked and unguarded beneath anyone risked less than naming himself. But Levi, just Levi, knows the cost of names.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg i promise Horizon story in next chapter. i think after 15 chapters we deserve clarity


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